MANUELI?  MEXICO 


ITTLE  PEG 


LITTLE-P1DQPI 


MANUEL  IN  MEXICO 
UME  SAN  IN  JAPAN 
RAFAEL  IN  ITALY 
KATHLEEN  IN  IRELAND 
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MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 


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[RESERVED 


MANUEL  AND   BENITO 


LITTLE    PEOPLE    EVERYWHERE 

MANUEL 
IN  MEXICO 

BY  ETTA  BLAISDELL  McDONALD 
AND  JULIA  DALRYMPLE 

Authors  of  "Utnt  San  in  Japan,"  "  Rafael  In 
Italy,"  "  Kathleen  in  Ireland,"  etc. 


Illustrated 


BOSTON 

LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND  COMPANY 
1910 


Copyright,  1909, 

BY  LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND  COMPANY. 



All  rights  reserved 


8.  J.  PARKHILL  &  Co.,  BOSTON,  U.  S.  A. 


Los  Angeic 


RL 

?2 

7 


PREFACE 

Mexico  is  a  land  flooded  with  sunshine  and 
decked  with  flowers.  Its  scenery  is  magnificent. 
Snow-capped  mountains  rise  amid  scenes  of  tropical 
beauty.  The  climate  varies  from  that  of  the  torrid 
zone  on  the  lowlands,  to  that  of  regions  of  per- 
petual snow  on  the  lofty  peaks.  Its  people  are 
kindly,  courteous,  and  hospitable.  It  is  a  land  of 
tradition  and  romance,  and  of  picturesque  contrasts. 

Nearly  half  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  United 
States  of  Mexico  are  Indians,  descendants  of  the 
Indian  races  which  were  conquered  by  the  Span- 
iards. Many  of  them  are  poor  peons  who  live  on 
the  haciendas,  tilling  the  soil  for  their  masters  as 
their  fathers  and  grandfathers  have  done  before 
them  for  many  generations ;  but  there  are  those  who 
have  become  famous  men  and  have  accomplished 
great  deeds  for  their  country. 

This  story  tells  how  Manuel,  a  little  Mexican  lad, 
who  begins  his  life  on  the  hacienda,  has  an  opportu- 
nity to  go  to  Mexico  City,  taking  with  him  his  friend 
Benito.  Here  the  two  boys  have  many  interesting 
adventures  and  Manuel,  at  last,  realizes  his  great 

v 


VI  PREFACE 

ambition  of  becoming  a  cadet  in  the  military  school 
of  Chapultepec. 

In  telling  the  story  the  most  picturesque  customs 
of  the  people,  both  in  country  and  city  life,  have 
been  introduced.  On  the  hacienda  one  sees  the 
boys  playing  games  and  riding  burros,  the  little  girls 
going  to  school,  the  peon  laborers  working  in  the 
fields,  the  women  patting  tortillas ;  the  simple,  daily 
life  of  the  poor  Indians. 

In  the  city  is  the  greatest  contrast.  Here  there 
are  the  streets  thronged  with  gaily-dressed  people, 
the  markets,  the  street  venders,  the  parks  beautiful 
with  flowers,  fountains  and  electric  lights,  the 
canals  crowded  with  flower-laden  boats. 

Manuel  and  Benito  become  pages  to  a  great  lady 
and  take  part  in  the  Christmas  festivities.  They 
learn  a  little  history  and  see  many  of  the  interest- 
ing sights  in  and  near  Mexico  City. 

The  pronouncing  vocabulary  at  the  end  of  the 
book  will  help  to  make  the  reading  easy  for  children, 
and  if  they  live  Manuel's  life  with  him  for  a  little 
while  they  cannot  fail  to  find  a  charm  in  this  land  of 
flowers  and  sunshine  and  happy  childhood. 

The  authors  acknowledge  their  indebtedness  to 
Mrs.  Arthur  L.  Finney,  of  Orizaba,  for  valuable 
information  concerning  life  and  customs  in  Mexico, 
and  to  Mr.  William  Avery  Cary  for  the  use  of  his 
photographs. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    MANUEL'S  BAND i 

II.    PEDRO  RIDES  A  BURRO 7 

III.  THE  CALL  OF  THE  MOUNTAIN 10 

IV.  DONNA  HULITA'S  BOOK 18 

V.    BENITO  JUAREZ 21 

VI.    JUANA'S  BEDSTEAD 25 

VII.    TORTILLAS  AND  TOMATO  SAUCE 32 

VIII.    MANUEL,  THE  TEACHER 38 

IX.    JUANA'S  MEMORIES 44 

X.    DONNA  HULITA'S  CALL 48 

XL    CASTLES  IN  THE  AIR 55 

XII.    A  RIDE  ON  THE  TRAIN 61 

XIII.  THE  END  OF  THE  JOURNEY 66 

XIV.  MORNING  IN  MEXICO  CITY 72 

XV.    CHRISTMAS  SHOPPING 79 

XVI.    GABRIEL'S  HOME-COMING 89 

XVII.  THE  BOYS  HAVE  AN  ADVENTURE    ....    98 

XVIII.    MANUEL'S  FATHER 102 

XIX.  SIGHT- SEEING  WITH  SENOR  GABRIEL  .     .     .105 

XX.    JUAN'S  LETTER 112 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


Manuel  and  Benito          .        .         .         .       FRONTISPIECE 

Burro  Carrying  a  Load  of  Pottery  .         .         .  Page     13 

Old  Juana  Making  Tortillas    ....  "28 

The  House  Where  Benito  Lived      .         .         .  "        33 

Washing  Clothes  in  the  River          .        .        .  "        56 

Carrying  Luncheon-Baskets     ....  "56 

Pepita  in  the  Gateway     .         .         .         .         .  »        58 

"  Many    Burros    Toiling    Patiently   over   the 

Plain" "64 

Patio  in  the  House  of  Sefiora  Gomez       .  "72 

Market-Place  in  Mexico  City  ....  "99 


MANUEL  IN  MEXICO 


CHAPTER  I 

MANUEL'S  BAND 

Nowhere,  save  among  the  brown  children  of 
Mexico,  could  ten  little  boys  have  gathered  so 
quietly  for  such  a  noisy  game. 

It  was  Benito  who  called  them  together,  and 
Manuel  who  lined  them  up  against  the  hacienda 
wall. 

"  Vamonos  !     All  aboard,  boys !  " 

The  call  in  Benito's  soft  Spanish  was  taken  up 
and  echoed  by  one  after  another  of  the  band,  wher- 
ever it  found  them. 

Some  of  the  boys  were  bouncing  ball,  others  ly- 
ing idly  under  the  trees.  All  answered  the  call  and 
hurried  toward  the  gateway  where  Manuel  and 
Benito  were  waiting  for  them. 

There  were  three  who  heard  as  they  played  leap- 
frog in  front  of  the  blacksmith's  forge.  They 
straightened  themselves  and  turned  in  the  direction 
of  the  others. 


2  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

The  largest  of  the  three  repeated  the  call,  "  All 
aboard,  boys !  "  but  he  made  no  move  to  follow. 
Instead,  he  put  a  hand  upon  the  shoulder  of  each 
of  his  two  companions,  holding  them  when  they 
would  have  run  after  the  others. 

His  face  was  heavy  and  sullen  looking,  and  his 
voice  hard  as  he  said,  "  Tell  me,  Pedro,  why  must 
we  run  the  moment  Benito  Diaz  calls  ?  " 

"  Because  it  is  Manuel  who  wants  us,"  answered 
Pedro. 

"  Yes,  Juan,"  spoke  the  other  boy  eagerly,  "  let 
us  hurry!  Perhaps  Manuel  has  the  burros  ready 
for  us." 

Juan  turned  angrily  to  Jose.  "  More  likely  he 
will  make  burros  of  us,  by  driving  us  about,"  he 
said.  "  Let  us  stay  here  and  play  leap-frog  as  we 
were  doing  before  Benito  called." 

"  All  aboard,  boys ! "  came  the  call  again  from 
the  gate,  and  with  an  answering  call,  Pedro  and 
Jose  shook  off  Juan's  hand  and  ran  quickly  to  join 
the  others,  whose  voices  rose  in  happy  chatter. 

Juan,  "  Black  Juan  "  the  boys  called  him  because 
of  his  scowling  face,  followed  slowly,  kicking  little 
stones  out  of  his  path.  It  was  easy  to  see  that  there 
was  rebellion  in  his  heart,  for  his  scowl  was  heavier 
than  usual. 

In  the  meantime,  Pedro  and  Jose  had  joined  the 
group  by  the  adobe  gateway.  "  Here  we  are," 


MANUEL S   BAND  3 

they  said,  not  to  Benito  who  called  them,  but 
to  the  larger  boy  who  stood  outside  the  gate. 

It  was  Manuel,  the  leader  of  the  band,  who,  with- 
out waiting  for  the  reluctant  Juan,  said  quietly, 
"  All  aboard !  "  and  the  nine  boys  ranged  themselves 
against  the  high  wall. 

The  bright  Mexican  sun  looked  down  upon  a 
pleasant  scene  in  that  Tlaxcalan  valley. 

A  rolling  plain  covered  with  maguey  and  corn 
fields  stretched  away  from  the  white  adobe  wall. 
Inside  the  wall  rose  the  low  buildings  of  the  haci- 
enda. Against  the  wall  stood  a  line  of  ragged  little 
Mexican  Indian  boys. 

From  the  foot  of  the  line,  to  which  he  had  been 
crowded  by  the  others,  Pedro  looked  far  and  wide 
with  a  disappointed  face.  "  Where  are  the  bur- 
ros ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Stupid !  Who  said  anything  about  burros  ?  " 
asked  Benito  from  the  head  of  the  line. 

"  Jose,"  answered  Pedro.  "  Jose  said  perhaps 
Manuel  would  have  the  burros  ready." 

"  Manuel  would  not  have  them  ready ;  he  would 
tell  me,  and  I  would  have  them  ready,"  said  Benito, 
turning-  a  cart-wheel  for  joy. 

Pedro  looked  as  if  he  were  at  his  wits'  end  be- 
tween disappointment  at  not  seeing  the  burros  and 
bewilderment  at  trying  to  understand  Benito's 
words. 


4  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

"  But  if  the  burros  were  here,"  he  said,  obstin- 
ately, "  it  would  be  Manuel  who  would  have  them 
here." 

"  Very  well,  Stupid,"  answered  Benito,  seeing 
that  Pedro  thought  him  of  little  use  except  to  ex- 
plain. "  The  burros  have  all  gone  to  the  station 
with  loads  of  corn.  Manuel  could  have  no  burros 
this  morning,  so  we  are  going  to  play  Cat  and 
Rat/' 

Pedro's  face  grew  cheerful  at  once.  Next  to 
burro-riding  he  liked  to  be  the  cat  in  the  game  of 
Cat  and  Rat.  "  Let  me  be  the  cat,"  he  cried. 

"  No,"  said  Manuel,  "  we  must  count  out  for  it," 
and  he  began  pointing  his  finger  at  one  boy  after  an- 
other, saying: 

"  De  una,  de  dola, 
De  tela,  canela." 

The  choice  fell  upon  big  Pedro  to  be  the  rat, 
and  by  counting  out  again  little  Benito  was  chosen 
for  the  cat.  Then  the  boys  formed  a  ring  with  the 
rat  inside  and  the  cat  outside,  and  the  game  began ; 
the  cat  trying  to  break  the  ring  and  catch  the  rat. 

Juan  took  his  place  in  sullen  silence  while  all  the 
others  scuffled  and  pushed  one  another  good- 
naturedly  in  finding  places  to  their  liking. 

Benito  threw  himself  again  and  again  upon  the 
clasped  hands,  but  to  no  purpose.  The  circle  bent 


MANUEL  S   BAND  5 

as  it  swayed  back  and  forth,  but  it  did  not  break. 

Big  Pedro  watched  the  struggle  with  a  slow 
smile  on  his  flat  face.  Often  he  said,  "  Non! "  as 
Benito  was  pushed  back  and  forth.  Sometimes, 
when  the  boy  almost  broke  a  link  in  the  chain,  it 
would  be  "  Si !  "  only  to  be  changed  to  "  Non ! " 
again,  as  the  hands  tightened  and  drove  Benito 
back. 

No  one  heard  Pedro.  The  boys  were  all  intent 
upon  the  motions  of  the  cat.  "  Here,  old  cat,  here 
is  a  weak  place.  Try  this !  "  was  their  shout ;  but 
Benito  never  found  it  weak  enough  to  break 
through. 

Suddenly  the  rat  could  wait  for  the  cat  no 
longer.  Pedro  gave  a  roar  like  a  gentle  bull  and 
threw  himself  upon  a  pair  of  hands.  They  fell 
apart  under  his  weight  and  left  an  open  space. 

"  Here,  little  Benito,"  he  cried,  "  come  quick ! 
Here  is  a  chance  for  you  to  catch  me !  " 

But  the  boys  closed  upon  Benito  like  bees,  and 
now  he  was  the  rat,  inside  the  circle,  while  Pedro, 
outside  the  ring,  found  himself  the  cat. 

Then  it  was  that  Manuel  proved  his  leadership. 

Where  before  there  had  been  only  play,  every- 
thing now  became  in  earnest.  The  laughing  and 
careless  chattering  ceased  and  every  boy  looked  to 
the  leader  for  directions.  There  was  a  pushing  to- 
gether of  two  slender  boys,  and  a  stretching  apart 


6  MANUEL    IN    MEXICO 

of  two  sturdy  ones.  Jose  was  changed  into  Mar- 
tin's place,  and  Manuel  diverted  Pedro's  attention 
while  the  change  was  made. 

Or,  just  as  Pedro  thought  himself  breaking 
through,  in  some  way  he  found  himself  somewhere 
else,  beginning  all  over  again.  There  had  been  a 
quick  signal  from  Manuel,  a  sudden  clamor  from  the 
boys,  and  the  slow-thinking  Pedro  had  been  con- 
fused. 

It  was  a  long  game.  The  moment  arrived  when 
he  was  ready  to  give  up  the  struggle,  but  at  that 
moment  Juan's  treachery  gave  the  battle  to  him. 

Pedro,  tired  out,  threw  himself  half-heartedly 
upon  Juan's  and  Jose's  clasped  hands.  Juan 
loosened,  instead  of  tightening  his  hold,  and  the 
link  broke,  the  cat  jumping  upon  the  rat  with  a 
shout. 


CHAPTER  II 

PEDRO   RIDES   A   BURRO 

It  had  been  a  hard-won  victory,  but  even  slow 
Pedro  knew  that  it  was  not  his. 

"  It  belongs  to  Manuel,"  he  said.  "  I  would 
have  given  up,  but  Manuel  would  never  have  done 
so." 

"  That  is  true,"  said  Jose.  "  Juan  let  go  of  my 
hand  when  Pedro  fell  upon  us." 

The  boys  looked  indignantly  at  Juan.  Angry 
words  rose  from  them  all,  until  the  boy,  feeling 
himself  in  disgrace  with  the  band,  turned  and 
skulked  away. 

But  Pedro  sprang  after  him.  Pedro  was  never 
slow  in  his  anger,  and  now  he  had  become  roused 
to  punish  the  offender.  He  threw  Black  Juan  into 
the  dirt,  fell  upon  his  body  and  lifted  his  fist  to 
strike  the  boy,  when  Manuel  interfered. 

"  Use  him  for  your  burro,  Pedro,"  he  said,  "  and 
let  him  put  you  down  at  the  blacksmith's  forge." 

So  it  came  about  that  Juan  found  himself  doing 
the  very  thing  he  had  feared  when  the  game  began. 

It  was  a  common  thing  to  see  one  boy  play  burro 
7 


8  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

for  another,  but  it  was  usually  as  a  forfeit,  and  not 
as  a  punishment. 

Juan's  heart  was  fierce  with  anger  as  he  crawled 
the  long  distance  over  the  ground  between  the  gate 
and  the  forge,  carrying  Pedro  on  his  back.  He 
could  not  throw  the  boy  off.  When  he  tried  to  do 
so,  the  band  laughed  to  see  Pedro  dig  his  heels  into 
the  burro's  sides,  until  Juan  was  glad  to  go  on. 
They  went  past  the  walls  of  the  great  casa,  past  the 
church,  store,  and  school-buildings,  and  past  those 
buildings  where  the  corn  and  other  provisions  were 
stored. 

The  earth  over  which  he  crawled  was  worn  bare 
with  the  passing  of  many  feet.  Over  this  earth, 
rough  with  pebbles,  Juan  crawled  with  his  load, 
while  the  birds  in  the  trees  sang  as  if  in  mockery. 

A  charcoal  burner,  driving  his  own  heavily- 
loaded  burro  through  the  gate,  laughed  at  the  sight 
and  said,  "  He  would  make  a  good  match  for  my 
old  Sancho." 

In  front  of  an  open  doorway  an  Indian  woman 
crooned  a  song  before  her  charcoal  fire  to  make 
the  pot  boil  sooner.  Juan  thought  she  sang  to 
shame  him. 

He  would  have  liked  to  hide  out  of  sight  among 
the  shrubbery  by  the  duck  pond,  but  Pedro  drove 
him  on  with  hard  blows  from  his  fist.  The  other 
boys  called  scornful  words  after  him,  and  their 


PEDRO   RIDES   A    BURRO  9 

laughter  grew  louder  as  Juan,  hot  and  tired,  moved 
more  slowly. 

One  called  above  the  others,  "  He  is  a  lepero !  " 
and  Manuel,  hearing  him,  interfered  once  more. 

"  It  is  enough,"  he  said  in  his  short  way.  "  He 
is  one  of  us,  and  we  have  no  leperos  among  the 
band."  To  Pedro  he  added,  "  Let  him  go." 

Pedro  sprang  to  the  ground  and  set  the  tired  boy 
free. 

Juan  rose,  and  so  kindly  had  Manuel  said,  "  He 
is  one  of  us,"  that  Juan  felt  a  change  in  his  heart. 
No  tramp  could  have  felt  more  miserable  and 
vengeful  than  he,  while  he  was  crawling  as  Pedro's 
burro,  but  that  force  in  Manuel  which  held  him 
chief  of  the  band  had  conquered  Juan  at  last. 

It  was  a  master's  voice  that  sentenced  him  to 
play  the  burro.  It  was  a  master's  voice  that  called 
to  the  best  in  Juan,  when  Manuel  said  quietly,  "  We 
have  no  leperos  among  the  band." 

A  silence  fell  upon  the  boys.  In  the  silence, 
Juan  looked  at  Manuel  and  the  look  was  like  that 
of  a  grateful  dog.  From  that  moment  he  rebelled 
no  more.  The  sun  shone  over  the  hacienda  walls 
and  filled  his  heart  with  happiness. 

Just  then  the  great  bell  in  the  tower  rang  out  the 
hour  of  noon.  The  peons  crowded  through  the 
gate,  returning  from  their  labor  in  the  fields,  and 
the  boys  joined  them  for  their  daily  lunch. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   CALL   OF   THE    MOUNTAIN 

It  was  a  queer-looking  group  of  Indian  boys  that 
separated  to  join  their  peon  fathers  at  the  noon-day 
lunch. 

Not  one  among  them  wore  a  whole  garment  save 
Manuel.  Thanks  to  his  careful  old  grandmother, 
Juana,  his  blouse  and  trousers  were  clean  and 
whole.  Thanks  to  his  own  pride  he  wore  a  som- 
brero on  his  head,  and  that  also  was  clean  and 
whole. 

Every  Mexican  man  and  boy  who  can  buy  or  beg 
one,  wears  a  sombrero.  Looking  over  the  ten  who 
made  up  what  was  known  as  "  Manuel's  Band,"  its 
rank  showed  at  once  in  the  pitiful  fact  that  only 
one  other  boy  beside  Manuel  wore  any  part  of  a 
sombrero. 

That  boy  was  Benito  Diaz. 

Benito's  sombrero,  however,  was  now  only  the 
crown  of  one.     It  had  parted  company  with  its  brim 
many  weeks  before.     Benito's  blouse  and  trousers, 
also,  were  torn  and  weather-worn. 
10 


THE   CALL   OF  THE    MOUNTAIN  II 

Once  in  a  great  while  old  Juana  caught  the  boy 
and  changed  his  rags  for  something  clean  and 
whole.  Then  for  a  few  days  he  rivalled  Manuel 
in  the  eyes  of  the  band.  He  slept  at  night  wrapped 
in  the  half  of  a  dirty  scrape  on  the  floor  of  his 
father's  hut,  where  many  others  also  slept. 

For  his  daily  food  he  ate  what  has  been  the  food 
of  Mexicans  for  hundreds  of  years,  corn-cake  and 
beans.  Instead  of  corn-cake  and  beans  he  called  it 
tortillas  and  frijoles. 

Sometimes  he  fried  his  tortillas  for  himself, 
sometimes  he  took  them  from  old  Juana's  hand, 
and  sometimes  he  went  without. 

"  It  is  no  matter,"  he  would  say  merrily,  when 
Manuel  offered  him  a  dish  of  frijoles  for  dessert, 
"  I  am  not  hungry  so  long  as  the  sun  shines  and 
the  earth  is  covered  with  flowers." 

The  Mexican  sun  is  almost  always  shining,  and 
the  Mexican  earth  covered  with  beautiful  flowers ; 
and,  certainly,  Benito's  laughing  face  never  looked 
hungry. 

Perhaps  he  was  too  busy  attending  to  Manuel's 
wants,  ever  to  know  any  want  of  his  own.  Not 
that  Manuel  said  much  about  his  wants  to  Benito, 
for  that  would  drive  the  sunshine  from  his  face, 
and  one  missed  the  sunshine  when  it  went  from 
Benito's  face. 

It  was  when  Manuel  lay  quietly  watching  the 


12  MANUEL    IN    MEXICO 

clouds  drift  over  the  mountain-top,  as  if  he  would 
like  to  follow  after  them,  that  Benito  felt  the  time 
was  ripe  to  attend  to  Manuel's  wants. 

Once  or  twice,  at  such  times,  it  happened  that 
Manuel's  voice  spoke  the  longing  in  his  eyes. 

"  On  the  farther  side  of  the  mountain  lies  the 
great  City  of  Mexico,"  he  told  the  wondering 
Benito.  And  Benito  answered  vaguely,  "  Si,  Man- 
uel." He  would  have  said  "  Yes,  Manuel,"  if  the 
other  had  told  him  that  George  Washington  was 
still  alive  and  lived  in  a  great  hacienda  on  the  far- 
ther side  of  the  mountain. 

So  he  said,  "  Si,  Manuel,"  and  waited,  watching 
a  group  of  mounted  police  as  they  turned  and 
wheeled  in  the  distance. 

Manuel  continued,  "  Somewhere  near  the  house 
of  our  President  there  is  a  school  where  generals 
are  made.  I  should  like  to  go  to  that  school." 

This  was  the  longing  that  Benito  had  seen  and 
puzzled  over  in  the  boy's  far-away  look. 

In  all  Benito's  ten  years  he  had  never  reasoned 
much,  but  it  did  not  take  him  long  to  come  to  a  con- 
clusion. Manuel's  love  for  fine  clothes  must  be  at 
the  bottom  of  the  trouble,  he  thought.  No  doubt 
the  bright  red  scrapes  worn  by  the  mounted  police 
when  they  rode  over  the  plains  had  taken  his  fancy. 

Benito's  common  sense  told  him  that  a  boy  who 
owned  only  half  a  sombrero  could  never  manage 


THE   CALL   OF   THE    MOUNTAIN  13 

to  find  a  red  scrape,  so  he  turned  his  thoughts  to 
the  mounted  police. 

There  were  plenty  of  burros  to  be  had  for  the 
asking  when  they  were  not  carrying  the  hacienda 
loads,  and  there  were  plenty  of  boys,  children  of 
the  peon  laborers,  to  ride  them. 

Benito  decided  that  Manuel  should  become  a 
general  at  once. 

That  was  how  it  came  about  that  Juan,  Pedro, 
Jose,  Benito,  and  six  other  boys,  found  themselves 
formed  into  a  sort  of  company,  which  became  known 
in  time  as  "  Manuel's  Band." 

Whenever  Benito  saw  Manuel's  eyes  follow  the 
clouds  over  the  mountain-tops,  he  called  the  ten 
together.  They  were  often  to  be  seen  playing 
Mexican  games ;  leap-frog,  known  in  Mexico  as 
burro-corrido,  or  the  game  which  the  Spaniards 
carried  to  Mexico  when  Cortez  conquered  the  coun- 
try four  hundred  years  ago,  the  game  of  bull  fight. 

But  the  game  the  boys  liked  best  was  to  mount 
the  burros  and  gallop  out  over  the  plains. 

What  riders  they  were !  The  poor  burros  hardly 
knew  themselves  as  they  were  driven  here  and 
there  while  the  boys  lassoed  one  of  the  band,  or 
tried  to  pull  him  from  his  seat. 

It  was  a  life  that  Benito  loved.  That  which  lay 
beyond  the  mountain  had  no  interest  for  him.  He 
never  gave  it  a  thought,  and  little  by  little  it  became 


14  MANUEL    IN    MEXICO 

his  great  aim  to  keep  Manuel  from  thinking  of  it. 
Manuel  led  the  band,  but  Benito  led  Manuel. 

At  the  railroad  station  of  Santa  Ana,  three  miles 
away  from  the  hacienda,  the  train  guard  called  in 
Spanish,  "  Vamonos,  All  aboard !  "  when  it  was 
time  for  the  train  to  start. 

The  band  took  the  word  for  its  own  use. 
"  Vamonos !  "  Benito's  soft  voice  would  call,  and 
the  boys'  bare  feet  would  run  from  the  far  corners 
of  the  hacienda  enclosure  to  the  spot  where  Manuel 
waited  for  them. 

"  All  aboard !  "  he  would  say  quietly  from  under 
his  sombrero,  and  they  would  range  themselves 
along  the  high  wall. 

The  great  Spaniard,  Cortez,  when  he  took  away 
their  liberty,  took  everything  else  from  the  people 
of  Mexico.  He  tore  down  the  wonderful  palaces  and 
temples,  where  monarchs  had  held  royal  court,  and 
laid  out  great  farms.  On  these  farms,  or  haciendas 
as  they  are  called,  the  Mexican  Indians  work  to- 
day. These  humble  Indians  are  the  descendants  of 
a  race  that  was  once  among  the  proudest  on  the 
earth. 

The  hacienda  where  Manuel  and  his  ten  playmates 
lived  belonged  to  Don  Felipe  Gomez. 

At  the  time  this  hacienda  was  built,  four  hun- 
dred years  before,  the  Spaniards  were  still  fighting 
to  establish  themselves  in  the  country.  To  secure 


THE   CALL   OF   THE    MOUNTAIN  15 

themselves  from  the  attacks  of  the  Indians  they 
built  great  walls  all  around  the  settlement  of 
houses,  forming  a  protected  village. 

This  was  also  a  village  for  protection.  At  night 
anyone  within  sound  of  the  great  bell  in  the  tower 
could  enter  the  enclosure  and  find  hospitality  in  the 
casa,  where  there  was  always  food  and  a  bed  for 
the  traveller. 

Outside  the  walls,  between  the  little  village  and 
the  distant  snow-covered  mountains,  were  low  hills 
and  long  valleys.  Hundreds  of  acres  of  pulque 
plants  and  corn  dotted  these  hills. 

Mile  after  mile  stretched  away  before  the  white 
mountains  lifted  their  peaks  and  yet  Manuel's  eyes 
seldom  rested  before  they  reached  the  mountain- 
tops. 

Benito  could  never  understand  why  the  boy  must 
always  look  so  high.  "  See,  Manuel,"  he  would 
urge,  "  from  the  very  gateway  there  begins  a  pleas- 
ant path  for  your  feet.  Here  are  more  flowers  on 
the  ground  than  there  are  stars  in  tfre  sky." 

But  Manuel  would  answer,  "  We  can  always  have 
flowers  for  the  picking,  but  to  get  to  the  stars  one 
must  climb  to  the  mountain-top." 

"  Of  course,  Stupid,"  Benito  would  reply,  "  there 
is  no  other  way."  But  for  the  life  of  him  he  could 
not  see  why  Manuel  should  want  stars  when  there 
were  so  many  flowers. 


16  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

Every  event,  big  or  little,  that  made  up  the  daily 
life  of  the  hacienda,  was  to  Benito  like  the  picking 
of  flowers. 

First,  there  was  the  ringing  of  the  bell  in  the 
tower.  At  the  sound,  all  the  peons  took  their  way 
in  a  long  slow  procession  through  the  gate  and  went 
to  their  work  in  the  fields.  There  were  hundreds 
of  these  men  whose  fathers  and  grandfathers  be- 
fore them  had  answered  to  the  sound  of  the  same 
bell. 

After  the  long  procession  had  passed,  there  were 
the  many  industries  of  the  hacienda  to  interest  the 
boy.  There  was  the  blacksmith's  forge  with  its 
never  idle  smith,  and  the  store  where  there  was  al- 
ways an  Indian  buying  or  selling,  an  Indian  coming 
or  going  to  his  home  on  the  mountain. 

Then  there  was  the  church  with  its  open  door, 
and  the  school ;  but  Benito  seldom  went  near  the 
school.  In  fact,  he  said  he  would  never  go  there 
if  he  could  help  it.  It  was  a  good  enough  place  for 
little  girls,  with  their  skirts  to  their  heels,  their  hair 
braided  and  tied  with  red  tape  and  covered  with  a 
reboso.  They  were  well  out  of  the  way  from  early 
morning  until  night  in  just  such  a  place. 

Benito  sometimes  held  Manuel  still  outside  the 
door  to  listen  to  the  sound  of  their  study.  Then, 
after  a  moment,  the  two  would  creep  silently  away, 
knowing  very  well  that  unless  they  chose  to  go  to 


THE   CALL  OF  THE    MOUNTAIN  I/ 

the  school  themselves,  they  too  must  soon  join  the 
long  procession  that  passed  through  the  gate  to  go 
to  work  in  the  fields. 

It  was  the  dread  of  just  such  a  future  that  turned 
Manuel's  eyes  to  the  mountain-top  and  his  longing 
thoughts  to  the  great  city  and  the  military  school. 

At  times  he  doubled  his  fists  and  said  to  himself, 
"  It  shall  never  be !  I  will  die  before  I  will  become  a 
peon  to  work  in  the  fields  and  drink  pulque." 


CHAPTER  IV 
DONNA  HULITA'S  BOOK 

One  day  Manuel  read  the  story  of  Benito  Juarez. 
It  was  a  strange  way  in  which  he  found  the  book 
that  told  the  life  of  that  wonderful  Indian. 

The  great  casa  where  Don  Felipe  lived  was 
seldom  open  to  the  children  of  the  peons.  The 
servants  of  the  household  lived  within  the  casa  and 
mingled  but  little  with  those  outside. 

One  day,  when  the  great  doors  happened  to  be 
opened  wide,  Manuel  looked  through  and  saw  the 
fountain  playing  in  the  patio  in  the  center.  It  was 
as  if  he  were  suddenly  lifted  to  the  mountain-top 
and  found  it  within  his  power  to  pass  down  on  the 
other  side. 

Without  waiting  a  moment  he  slipped  through 
the  portal  and  stood  among  the  beautiful  flowers 
and  fruit  trees.  It  was  another  world  to  Manuel, 
but  he  had  always  been  sure  that  there  was  such  a 
world. 

Columns  twined  with,  flowers  formed  arcades 
about  the  patio.  Looking  through  the  arcades  he 
saw  beautiful  rooms  opening  inward  into  the  house. 
18 


DONNA  HULITA'S  BOOK  19 

He  walked  boldly  into  the  most  beautiful  of 
these  rooms  and  found  himself  looking  into  Donna 
Hulita's  face.  Donna  Hulita  was  Don  Felipe's 
wife,  and  seldom  spoke  to  the  children  of  the  peons, 
but  she  spoke  to  Manuel. 

Perhaps  the  boy's  clean  blouse  attracted  her. 
Perhaps  she  liked  the  graceful  way  in  which  he 
took  his  sombrero  from  his  head  and  held  it  while 
he  looked  at  her.  Perhaps  she  could  not  help  her- 
self, for  he  was  very  handsome.  He  held  his  head 
straight  and  looked  at  her  as  proudly  as  if  he  were 
really  a  general. 

"  Buenos  dias !  "  said  she. 

Manuel  answered  with  the  same  softly  spoken 
words,  "  Good  morning,  Sefiora,"  and  never  took 
his  eyes  from  her  face.  Donna  Hulita  was  the 
handsomest  lady  he  had  ever  seen,  the  handsomest 
and  the  proudest. 

She  asked  him  many  questions, —  his  name,  his 
age,  and  in  which  hut  his  father  and  mother  lived. 

He  answered  briefly,  as  a  don  would  have  done. 
His  father  had  never  been  seen  since  the  day  he 
brought  Manuel,  a  tiny  baby,  and  placed  him  in 
Grandmother  Juana's  arms.  His  mother  died  when 
he  was  a  baby,  up  among  the  mountains  where  she 
lived  with  her  own  people.  She  had  never  seen 
Don  Felipe's  hacienda. 

Donna    Hulita    listened    to    what    he    said    and 


2O  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

looked  at  him  a  long  time  in  silence.  At  last  she 
took  a  little  book  from  the  table.  "  Take  this,"  she 
said,  "  and  when  you  have  read  it  bring  it  back  to 
me  again." 

Then  she  sent  him  away,  back  to  the  band  with 
its  games  and  burro-riding,  back  to  his  mountain- 
gazing.  But  he  took  the  book  with  him,  and  it  led 
to  many  things. 


CHAPTER  V 

BENITO   JUAREZ 

Manuel  went  to  find  Benito  as  soon  as  he  left 
Donna  Hulita  and  the  casa. 

"  Look !  "  he  said,  opening  the  book  before  the 
boy's  wondering  eyes.  "  We  must  learn  to  read." 

Benito  looked  the  book  well  through  before  he 
said  anything.  In  one  of  the  pictures  was  a  man 
on  horseback,  in  several  others  were  guns  and  the 
smoke  of  guns.  Benito  looked  at  the  pictures  with 
pleased  eyes. 

"  They  are  good  to  see,"  he  said  at  last,  "  but 
the  wooden  bench  in  the  school  is  not  good  to  feel 
all  day." 

"  There  is  no  other  way,"  said  Manuel  briefly. 

"Of  course  there  isn't,"  said  Benito  crossly. 
"If  one  would  get  words  out  of  a  book,  he  must 
go  into  the  school ;  but  he  would  die  before  many 
days."  Then  the  thought  came  to  him  that  the  bot- 
tom of  the  duck  pond  was  a  good  place  for  the  mis- 
chievous book. 

He  urged  Manuel  to  throw  it  into  the  water. 
Manuel  shook  his  head  and  took  the  book  away 

21 


22  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

from  him.  "  Will  you  come  also  to  the  school  ?  " 
he  asked. 

"  No,  I  will  not,"  declared  Benito  stoutly,  and  he 
warned  Manuel  that  everything  would  go  wrong  as 
soon  as  he  learned  to  read. 

Manuel,  however,  hunted  up  kind-hearted  little 
Pepita  and  asked  if  she  could  read  the  book  to  him. 
But  Pepita  had  been  only  three  weeks  in  school 
herself,  and  half  that  time  had  been  spent  in  cry- 
ing. She  was  only  five  years  old,  and  the  wooden 
bench  felt  so  hard  that  some  days  she  sat  most  of 
the  time  on  the  floor. 

"  Don't  go  to  the  school,"  she  said  to  Manuel. 
"  It  is  bad  for  the  eyes  to  cry  so  much." 

Manuel,  boy  that  he  was,  felt  a  man's  pity  for 
the  little  maid's  trouble,  but  a  boy's  scorn  for  her 
pity  for  him.  He  told  her  that  he  should  surely  go 
to  the  school  until  he  could  read  Donna  Hulita's 
book,  and  then  she  offered  him  the  use  of  her  slate 
and  pencil. 

"  Of  what  use  is  something  else?  "  he  asked  her. 
"  It  is  the  book  I  must  read." 

"  There  are  signs  that  you  must  make  all  day  on 
the  slate,  when  you  are  not  reading,"  answered  lit- 
tle Pepita. 

Manuel  drew  a  long  breath  and  looked  at  the 
mountain-top.  So  going  to  school  was  one  way 
that  led  to  the  stars. 


BENITO   JUAREZ  23 

He  made  up  his  mind  that  he  would  make  signs 
until  the  teacher's  eyes  should  ache  for  their  num- 
ber, and  he  would  learn  to  read. 

He  said  nothing  to  old  Juana,  but  took  his  place 
on  the  wooden  bench  and  held  his  slate  and  pencil 
as  the  little  girls  held  theirs,  and  made  the  signs. 
But  he  found  to  his  surprise  that  each  sign  held  a 
meaning,  and  the  days  were  not  so  long  as  he  had 
feared  they  would  be. 

He  saw  Benito  outside  the  door.  After  a  few 
days  he  seldom  looked  that  he  did  not  see  the  boy 
busily  marking  in  the  sand  at  first;  later  he  was 
fashioning  with  his  hands  little  figures  in  clay. 

One  day  Manuel  found  that  while  he  had  been 
inside,  learning  to  read,  Benito,  outside,  had  made 
the  whole  school-room  scene  in  clay.  There  were 
the  blackboard,  study-desks,  benches  and  teacher's 
table  in  the  scene.  Yes,  and  there  in  one  corner 
stood  Manuel  himself  in  the  dunce's  place. 

Benito's  skilful  fingers  had  done  the  work  of  an 
artist. 

Manuel  laughed  with  pleasure,  but  he  said  to  the 
boy,  "  I  am  no  dunce,  Benito.  The  teacher  told  me 
to-day  that  I  am  learning  to  read  with  great  speed." 
Then  he  turned  his  eyes  upon  his  friend.  "  You, 
Benito,  might  become  a  great  artist  in  Mexico  City." 

Benito  suddenly  spoke  out  crossly,  saying,  "  I  do 
not  wish  to  become  anything  but  your  playmate 


24  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

once  more,  and  how  can  we  be  playmates  if  we  do 
not  play  together  ?  " 

Manuel  could  say  nothing  to  comfort  him  then, 
but  the  day  came  when  at  last  he  finished  reading 
the  book,  and  went  to  Benito  with  kindling  eyes. 

"  It  is  the  story  of  a  great  man,  Benito  Juarez," 
he  told  the  boy.  "  He  was  an  Indian  boy  as  poor 
as  we  are.  He  wore  ragged  clothes,  and  no  som- 
brero, and  he  studied.  He  learned  to  read  and  he 
became,  as  President  Porfirio  Diaz  did  also,  one  of 
the  greatest  men  in  Mexico ! " 

Benito  looked  at  Manuel  and  felt  the  fire  of  his 
spirit.  "  Where  did  he  live  when  he  was  a  little 
boy  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Down  in  the  south  of  Mexico,"  said  Manuel, 
and  repeated,  "  He  was  an  Indian  boy  as  poor  as 
we  are,  and  he  wore  ragged  clothes !  " 

Benito  caught  Manuel's  thought.  "  What  shall 
you  do?"  he  asked  softly. 

"  I  shall  do  what  Donna  Hulita  tells  me  to  do," 
said  Manuel.  "  I  am  going  to  the  casa  and  ask  to 
see  her."  But  Donna  Hulita  was  not  there.  She 
had  gone  over  the  mountain  to  Mexico  City,  and 
there  was  nothing  for  Manuel  to  do  but  wait  for 
her  return. 


CHAPTER  VI 

JU ANA'S   BEDSTEAD 

Benito  "was  happy  once  more.  He  spirited  Man- 
uel away  from  school  and  the  two  boys  galloped 
out  over  the  plain  on  their  burros. 

"  Did  you  learn  nothing  but  Benito  Juarez  in 
the  school  ? "  asked  the  boy  Benito  curiously,  as 
they  stopped  their  burros  by  the  wall  that  ran  beside 
the  great  maguey  field. 

Manuel  laughed.  "  No,  I  learned  that  in  the 
country  to  the  north  of  ours  there  are  people  who 
never  saw  a  burro,"  he  answered. 

Benito  looked  as  if  he  thought  Manuel  had  sud- 
denly lost  his  wits. 

"  That  cannot  be,"  he  said.  "  No  country  could 
get  along  without  burros."  But  Manuel  insisted 
that  it  was  true. 

"  Then,"  said  Benito,  when  at  last  he  was  con- 
vinced, "  I  am  willing  to  cross  the  mountain  with 
you  and  see  the  world,  if  it  is  such  a  queer  world 
that  burros  have  not  travelled  over  the  whole  of  it." 

"  Look ! "  said  Manuel  suddenly,  pointing  to  a 
peon  who  was  beating  an  overburdened  little  ani- 
25 


26  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

mal  among  the  pulque  plants.  "  His  burro  is  more 
of  a  man  than  he  is.  That  is  what  we  Indian  boys 
must  become  if  we  stay  here, —  a  beast  like  cruel 
Sancho." 

"  Well,"  said  Benito  carelessly,  "  if  it  is  the  cus- 
tom, what  is  to  be  done  about  it  ?  " 

"  If  I  were  the  President,"  said  Manuel,  "  I 
would  do  something  about  it.  I  would  begin  by 
stopping  all  pulque  from  being  made." 

"  Good  !  "  said  Benito.  "  Then  we  should  have 
the  more  flowers." 

Benito  was  right.  The  flower  of  the  pulque 
plant  is  not  allowed  to  blossom.  If  it  should,  there 
would  be  no  pulque,  and  pulque  is  the  national 
drink  of  Mexico. 

It  was  little  Jose  who  said  one  time,  "  If  I  can 
have  a  sombrero,  a  pulque  plant,  and  a  burro,  when 
I  am  a  man',  I  shall  be  rich  enough." 

The  boys  were  shivering  with  the  cold  when  he 
said  it,  but  Benito  was  the  only  one  who  thought  to 
say,  "  I  would  rather  have  a  scrape  now." 

A  Mexican  man  can  wrap  himself  in  his  scrape 
when  he  is  cold;  but  few  children  of  the  peons  can 
own  one.  The  scrape  is  used  as  a  shawl  by  day 
and  a  blanket  by  night,  but  as  not  one  of  the  band 
owned  such  a  thing,  they  had  to  get  along  as  well 
as  they  could  without  it. 

As  Manuel  and  Benito  sat  on  their  burros  beside 


JUANA'S  BEDSTEAD  27 

the  pulque  field,  the  sun  beat  down  upon  them  so 
fiercely  that  it  was  hard  to  believe  that  they  could 
ever  be  cold  in  Mexico. 

Suddenly,  in  the  distance,  they  heard  the  merry 
shouts  of  the  boys. 

Pedro  and  the  others  had  discovered  their  ab- 
sence and  were  galloping  toward  them,  mounted 
also  on  burros. 

"  Let  us  hide !  "  said  Benito,  always  ready  for 
excitement.  Slipping  from  their  animals,  they 
drew  into  the  shelter  of  a  few  tangled  bushes  grow- 
ing by  the  roadside. 

The  band  drew  nearer,  sitting  their  burros  as  if 
they  were  wild  horses  of  the  plains.  At  the  bushes 
they  stopped  so  suddenly  that  there  would  have 
been  broken  bones,  had  they  not  been  Indian  boys, 
who  had  ridden  on  burros  almost  ever  since  they 
were  babies. 

Pedro  peered  anxiously  about.  "  Where  have 
they  gone?"  he  asked  fretfully,  just  as  Juan's 
sharper  eyes  discovered  the  two  boys. 

If  Pedro's  voice  had  not  been  so  soft,  the  cry  that 
he  gave  on  seeing  Manuel  once  more  among  them, 
would  have  been  a  war-whoop. 

"  Come  over  to  the  station,"  he  urged.  "  There 
is  a  train-load  of  pilgrims  going  to  Sacra  Monte." 

Immediately  the  boys  were  off  again,  Benito  and 
Manuel  among  them,  in  the  direction  of  Santa 


28  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

Ana ;  but  they  were  destined  not  to  reach  the  little 
station  that  day. 

Beyond  the  maguey  field  a  mangy  dog  ran  beside 
the  road.  One  of  the  boys  threw  his  lasso  at  the 
dog,  but  it  coiled  about  the  feet  of  Benito's  burro 
instead.  The  little  animal  doubled  up  and  rolled 
to  the  ground  with  his  rider  underneath. 

All  the  boys  immediately  jumped  off  their  burros 
and  gathered  around  the  fallen  one,  who  did  not 
stir  when  they  called  to  him. 

Manuel  stood  above  him  with  a  frightened  face 
and  directed  the  band.  "  You,  Juan,  must  ride 
ahead  and  find  the  doctor,"  he  said.  "  You,  Jose, 
go  to  Grandmother  Juana  and  tell  her  to  get  the  bed- 
stead ready.  You,  Pedro,  must  help  me  lift  Benito 
on  to  the  burro." 

Pedro  could  not  have  lifted  the  boy  alone  without 
hurting  him,  but  together  he  and  Manuel  put  Benito 
carefully  upon  the  burro's  back,  and  then  they 
started  slowly  for  the  hacienda.  The  others  rode 
ahead  with  Jose  to  give  Manuel's  message  to  the 
old  Indian  woman. 

They  found  her  in  front  of  the  great  oven  with 
her  neighbor  Maria,  making  tortillas  and  frying 
them  over  a  little  charcoal  fire.  She  looked  at  the 
boys  in  surprise  as  they  clattered  along  the  ground 
and  stopped  in  a  group  before  her. 

"  You  must  get  the  bedstead  ready  for  Manuel, 


Copyright  by  Underwood  &  Underwood,  New  York 

Old  Juana  Making  Tortillas.     Page  28. 


JUANA  S    BEDSTEAD  2O, 

he  wishes  to  put  Benito  on  it  so  that  the  doctor  may 
look  at  him,"  said  Jose  very  loudly,  for  old  Juana 
was  quite  deaf. 

"  Benito  is  very  sick,"  shouted  one  of  the  boys, 
seeing  that  she  did  not  comprehend. 

"  That  is  what  I  always  said,"  nodded  the  old 
woman.  "  His  clothes  have  holes  in  them  always. 
I  said  he  would  be  sick." 

"  No,  no !  "  shouted  another  boy.  "  He  has  been 
hurt.  The  doctor  is  coming  and  you  must  put  him 
on  your  bedstead." 

"  The  doctor  must  see  my  bedstead !  "  said  Juana. 
"  That  is  good.  It  is  a  fine  bedstead." 

They  tried  again,  and  at  last  she  understood ;  but 
she  shook  her  head  and  said,  "  No,  it  can  never  be. 
No  one  has  ever  lain  upon  the  bedstead  since  it  was 
put  into  my  hut." 

"  Benito  must  lie  there,"  shouted  Jose.  "  Man- 
uel says  so." 

"  But  it  is  not  the  custom,"  answered  the  old 
woman.  "  I  cannot  permit  it,  because  we  Indians 
always  sleep  on  the  floor." 

Jose  begged,  but  Juana's  head  shook  steadily. 
"  It  is  no  use,"  she  said,  "  because  my  fiesta  clothes 
are  on  the  bedstead.  He  must  lie  on  the  floor.  It 
is  the  place  for  the  son  of  a  peon." 

When  Manuel  arrived  she  pointed  to  a  clean  mat 
placed  on  the  hard  floor  at  the  foot  of  the  bed- 


3O  MANUEL    IN    MEXICO 

stead.  "  Put  him  there,"  she  said.  But  Manuel 
put  the  fiesta  clothes  on  the  mat,  and  between  them, 
he  and  Pedro  put  Benito  on  the  bedstead. 

The  doctor  arrived  at  the  same  time.  He  looked 
the  child  over  and  found  that  he  had  a  broken  ankle 
and  must  be  kept  perfectly  still. 

"  Leave  him  on  the  bedstead,"  commanded  the 
doctor,  and  added,  "  I  will  come  again  when  he 
opens  his  eyes." 

Benito's  eyes  opened  after  a  couple  of  hours,  but 
Manuel  was  the  only  one  with  sense  enough  to  run 
to  tell  the  doctor  of  it. 

He  came  again,  felt  all  Benito's  bones,  wrapped 
his  broken  ankle  in  bandages,  gave  medicine,  and 
ordered  the  boy  to  lie  on  the  bedstead  for  three 
weeks. 

"  Afterwards,"  said  the  doctor  with  a  wave  of 
his  hand,  "  he  will  be  the  same  as  always." 

Poor  old  Juana  saw  it  all,  was  told  what  the  doc- 
tor said,  and  became  quite  dazed.  Benito  might  be 
the  same  as  always,  she  thought,  but  how  about  the 
bedstead ! 

It  had  never  been  used  since  Don  Felipe's  mother 
gave  it  to  her  one  time  when  house-cleaning  was 
going  on  up  at  the  great  casa.  A  most  beautiful 
spring  and  mattress  came  with  it.  Juana  stood  the 
bedstead  in  the  corner  of  her  hut  and  hung  her 
choicest  pieces  of  pottery  above  it  on  the  wall. 


JUAN  A  S    BEDSTEAD  3! 

At  night,  she  lay  down  on  the  floor  beside  it, 
wrapped  in  a  warm  scrape.  Nothing  but  the  fiesta 
clothes  had  ever  been  allowed  to  lie  upon  it.  If  a 
peon's  child  were  to  lie  upon  it  for  three  weeks  it 
could  never  be  the  same  again !  She  was  in  despair. 

Manuel  paid  no  attention  to  her  complainings, 
but  when  night  came  he  fried  tortillas  for  her  over 
the  charcoal  fire. 

Her  heart  softened  at  the  sight.  No  one  had 
ever  done  it  for  her  before.  "  But  it  is  not  the 
custom,"  she  said  faintly. 

Manuel  leaned  against  her  with  his  arm  about 
her  neck,  his  young  cheek  against  her  old  one.  He 
said  nothing,  but  there  was  no  need  that  he  should. 
She  was  quite  ready  to  let  him  have  his  way. 

Later,  after  Benito  got  well  and  left  the  bed- 
stead, Manuel  insisted  that  she  should  sleep  upon 
it,  and  in  her  old  heart  Juana  was  glad  to  let  him 
have  his  way. 


CHAPTER  VII 

TORTILLAS    AND    TOMATO    SAUCE 

Benito,  lying  upon  the  bedstead,  watched  Manuel 
who  sat  on  the  step  in  the  open  doorway.  Manuel 
had  collected  a  great  quantity  of  feathers  from  the 
hens  and  roosters.  He  was  tying  these  feathers 
to  the  end  of  a  long  slender  bamboo  stick  to  make 
a  duster. 

His  fingers  needed  to  work  with  great  skill  to 
make  the  feathers  fast  to  the  stick,  else  they  slipped 
off  and  he  had  to  begin  his  work  all  over  again. 

"  Look  at  him  work,  he  must  have  a  humming- 
bird in  his  belt,"  said  Benito  with  a  pleased  laugh, 
as  Manuel  started  his  task  for  the  third  time. 

Manuel  laughed  also  to  hear  Benito's  tongue  re- 
peat the  good  old  Mexican  proverb.  "  You  can  say 
nothing,  lazy  Benito,"  he  answered.  "  When  you 
have  lain  on  the  bedstead  one  more  week,  you  will 
need  a  humming-bird  in  your  own  belt  to  make  you 
work." 

Benito  had  already  lain  on  the  bed  two  weeks, 
and  to  his  own  great  surprise,  found  himself  still 
alive.  At  the  time  they  told  him  that  he  must  lie 
32 


Copyright  by  Underwood  <V  Unaerwooa,  i 

The  House  Where  Benito  Lived.     Page  33. 


TORTILLAS   AND   TOMATO   SAUCE  33 

there  three  weeks  he  thought  that  the  second  week 
would  surely  find  him  dead,  and  it  filled  him  with 
no  end  of  astonishment  that  the  days  went  by 
quickly  and  pleasantly. 

Perhaps  the  reason  was  that  for  the  first  time 
in  his  life  he  found  himself  a  person  of  importance. 
Not  only  did  Manuel  and  Grandmother  Juana  wait 
upon  him,  but  the  boys  of  the  band  brought  little 
gifts  to  him,  and  the  peon  men  and  women  stopped 
to  greet  him  as  they  went  to  work  in  the  fields. 

In  the  house  where  his  father  lived,  Benito  was 
only  one  of  twenty.  Men,  women  and  children 
shared  with  him  the  dirty  little  room  they  called  a 
home.  Nor  was  that  all, —  a  flock  of  hens  nested 
wherever  there  was  a  convenient  place,  usually  in 
the  bin  of  corn  that  filled  one  corner. 

Benito's  father  stopped  with  the  other  peons  to 
speak  to  the  boy,  and  it  was  hard  to  believe  that  the 
child  was  the  son  of  such  a  man. 

The  father  was  one  of  those  peons,  that  to  Man- 
uel seemed  more  like  a  beast  than  the  burro  he 
drove.  Benito,  on  the  contrary,  had  a  gentle,  deli- 
cate face,  like  that  of  the  flowers  he  loved.  His 
eyes  held  the  sunshine  of  both  flowers  and  sky 
when  the  Mexican  sun  shines  brightest.  His  heart 
held  nothing  but  love,  yet  he  loved  best  that  which 
is  sweet  and  clean. 

That  was  why  he  stayed  so  little  near  the  dirt  and 


34  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

misery  of  his  father's  house,  and  so  much  of  the 
time  near  Manuel,  at  old  Juana's  place.  He  had  no 
mother.  Perhaps  that  was  why  the  old  woman 
made  an  effort  now  and  then  to  dress  him  in  clean 
clothes ;  and  also  why  she  allowed  him  to  stay  on  the 
precious  bedstead  after  Manuel  had  put  him  there 
so  carefully. 

One  could  hardly  say  how  it  happened  that  old 
Juana  was  neat  and  thrifty.  She  was  noted  all 
over  the  hacienda  for  her  tidy  house,  her  neat  per- 
son and  her  fine  flock  of  hens. 

The  other  Indian  women  envied  her  the  house 
and  the  hens,  but  Juana  told  them  they  might  have 
hens  just  as  fine  as  hers  if  they  would  only  hang 
baskets  from  the  lower  branches  of  the  trees.  Then 
the  hens  would  have  a  place  to  roost  at  night,  where 
nothing  could  disturb  them. 

As  for  the  house,  there  were  plenty  of  colored 
pictures  at  the  store  to  be  had  for  the  asking.  She 
always  asked  for  the  tomato-can  labels  herself,  be- 
cause they  were  the  brightest. 

Benito,  from  his  bed,  studied  the  many  labels 
tacked  on  the  walls,  until  he  knew  everything  about 
them  except  the  words.  Then  he  asked  Manuel 
to  teach  the  words  to  him,  which  Manuel  was  glad 
enough  to  do  at  the  times  when  none  of  the  band 
interrupted. 

The  band  often  came  in  a  body  to  eat  supper  by 


TORTILLAS   AND   TOMATO    SAUCE  35 

Benito's  bedside  and  chatter  about  the  many  things 
that  had  happened  through  the  day  in  the  hacienda. 

At  such  times  they  sat  cross-legged  in  a  circle 
on  the  floor.  Each  boy  had  a  little  pile  of  tor- 
tillas and  a  dish  of  tomato  sauce  on  the  floor  in 
front  of  him.  They  all  took  a  tortilla  in  their 
fingers  at  the  same  moment,  dipped  it  in  the  sauce 
at  the  same  moment,  and  ate  it  greedily. 

Benito  laughed  at  the  sight,  and  Pedro  looked 
to  see  why  the  boy  was  laughing.  He  saw  nothing 
funny  about  it ;  the  peons  always  ate  with  their 
fingers.  He  got  slowly  to  his  feet  and  gave  a  cake 
to  the  boy  on  the  bed. 

"  Eat  it,"  he  said.  "  When  you,  also,  are  eat- 
ing, it  will  no  longer  look  funny  to  you." 

"  It  is  good  to  hear  him  laugh,"  said  Juan,  and 
would  have  said  more,  but  old  Juana  spoke  from 
the  doorway. 

"  It  is  not  the  custom  for  a  peon  to  eat  in  bed," 
she  said,  "  but  it  seems  that  all  our  customs  in 
Mexico  are  changing." 

Manuel  took  her  by  the  hand  and  drew  her  into 
a  chair  near  the  circle  of  boys.  There  were  few 
good  chairs  in  the  peons'  quarters,  but  old  Juana 
had  one. 

"  Tell  us  about  some  of  the  customs  in  Mexico 
when  you  were  a  girl,"  he  shouted  in  her  ear. 

The  boys  hushed  their  chatter  and  waited  for 


36  MANUEL    IN    MEXICO 

her  to  collect  her  thoughts.  As  the  old  woman 
looked  at  their  dusky  faces,  gleaming  in  the  dark 
shadows  of  the  little  room,  and  saw  the  quiet  figure 
stretched  out  on  the  bed,  something  sent  her 
thoughts  back  through  the  years. 

Her  look  grew  strange  and  her  eyes  left  the 
eager  faces  of  the  boys.  Turning  them  to  the  open 
door  she  fixed  them  on  the  distant  mountain,  and 
then  on  the  valley  below,  where  the  rising  moon 
was  casting  black  shadows. 

At  last  her  voice  rose  solemnly,  and  it  seemed 
to  the  boys  that  she  might  be  one  of  the  noble 
Indian  race  that  peopled  Mexico  before  the 
Spaniards  conquered  the  country. 

"  Over  the  old  highway  that  runs  between  the 
two  great  volcanoes,  Popocatapetl  and  Ixtaccihuatl, 
I  have  seen  the  Spanish  and  the  French  flying 
in  fear  before  our  Indians,"  she  said. 

The  boys  knew  that  the  old  highway  of  which 
she  spoke  led  from  the  coast  on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico 
to  Mexico  City,  and  they  had  heard  that  the  armies 
passing  over  it  in  former  years  were  some  of  the 
finest  the  world  has  ever  known. 

That  old  Juana  had  seen  actual  fighting  in  her 
young  days  filled  the  boys  with  awe.  Her  words 
conjured  up  a  picture  in  their  minds  of  the  splendor 
of  the  Indian  nation,  from  which  they  themselves 
were  descended. 


TORTILLAS   AND   TOMATO    SAUCE  37 

Their  young  blood  was  stirred  at  the  thought 
of  the  noble  palaces  and  temples  which  might  have 
belonged  to  their  own  race  had  the  Spanish  con- 
queror never  landed  upon  the  soil  of  Mexico,  the 
soil  their  fathers  tilled  for  Don  Felipe. 

Pedro  half  rose  to  his  feet,  about  to  start  forth 
to  crush  that  hateful  Spaniard,  wherever  he  might 
be,  but  old  Juana  was  speaking  once  more. 

"  Spanish,  French,  and  American ; —  they  have  all 
gone,"  she  said  in  a  prophetic  voice,  "  and  the 
Mexican  people  has  come  into  its  heritage  at  last." 

She  brought  her  eyes  back  to  the  tense  faces  of 
the  boys.  "  There  are  three  names  to  remember," 
she  said ;  "  that  of  Miguel  Hidalgo,  who  struck 
the  first  blow  for  Mexican  independence ;  Benito 
Juarez,  who  established  it;  and  Porfirio  Diaz,  who 
taught  us  how  to  preserve  it." 

In  the  silence  that  followed  her  words,  Pedro  sat 
back  contentedly.  "  This  independence  that  you 
speak  of,"  he  said  in  a  great  shout,  "  is  it  something 
for  us  all  ?  " 

She  nodded.  It  seemed  that  she  was  tired,  for 
she  said  nothing  more,  and  there  was  quiet  in  the 
hut  for  many  minutes. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

MANUEL,   THE   TEACHER 

Manuel,  at  last,  took  up  old  Juana's  words. 
"  In  the  school,"  he  said,  "  the  teacher  told  us 
many  things.  She  is  a  person  who  has  travelled 
to  that  country  where  the  Spaniards  live  when  they 
are  at  home." 

But  Pedro  interrupted  to  ask,  "  Have  they  a 
country  of  their  own  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  answered  Manuel,  "  and  there  they  live 
in  very  proud  houses,  such  as  our  President  has. 
They  knew  many  things  four  hundred  years  ago 
that  our  Indians  did  not  know.  Besides,  all  the 
tribes  of  Indians  were  not  against  them.  The 
Spaniards  forced  our  own  tribe,  the  Tlaxcalan  In- 
dians, to  help  them  with  their  plans." 

Pedro  became  indignant.  "  Such  Indians  should 
have  been  punished  as  traitors,"  he  said  hotly. 
But  Manuel  shook  his  head. 

"  There  were  many  different  tribes  of  Indians 
then,"  he  said,  "  just  as  there  are  now ;  but  they 
were  enemies.     Now  all  the  tribes  are  banded  to- 
gether to  help  each  other." 
38 


MANUEL,    THE   TEACHER  39 

"  Is  that  why  we  are  called  the  '  United  States 
of  Mexico  '  ?  "  asked  Jose. 

"  Yes,"  answered  Manuel. 

"How  did  our  Indians  help  Cortez?"  asked 
Pedro. 

"  They  built  boats  for  Cortez  and  carried  them 
over  the  mountains  to  the  lake  near  Mexico  City. 
This  was  the  capital  city  of  the  Aztec  tribe  which 
Cortez  wished  to  conquer." 

Pedro  looked  at  Manuel  in  amazement  to  hear 
him  state  such  a  monstrous  fact  so  quietly.  "  It 
was  a  shameful  thing  for  Cortez  to  force  his  way 
into  a  country  where  he  was  not  wanted,"  he  de- 
clared. "  The  Aztecs  were  a  noble  race.  I  have 
heard  it  said  that  they  were  very  brave  and  strong." 

Manuel  smiled.  "  The  teacher  said  that  it  was 
all  in  the  way  of  progress,"  he  answered.  "  The 
Aztecs  conquered  the  people  who  were  here  before 
them,  and  they  believed  a  stranger  was  to  come  who 
would  teach  them  many  new  things." 

"  How  do  you  know  that  there  were  people  here 
before  the  Aztecs?"  asked  Jose. 

"  Because  there  are  ruins  of  temples  still  stand- 
ing, which  neither  the  Aztecs  nor  the  Spaniards 
built,"  answered  Manuel. 

H  Where  are  they  ?  "  asked  Benito  from  the  bed. 

"  There  are  some  down  in  Oaxaca  where  Benito 
Juarez  was  born,"  said  Manuel.  "  They  are  called 


40  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

the  ruins  of  Mitla  and  they  were  built  so  strongly 
that  no  earthquake  has  ever  shaken  them  down." 

Pedro  looked  his  astonishment  that  such  things 
had  never  been  told  to  him  before. 

Manuel  continued,  "  Near  the  City  of  the  Angels 
there  is  a  great  pyramid,  upon  which  stood  a 
temple,  which  the  Aztecs  found  when  they  went  to 
build  the  City  of  Mexico.  Cortez  destroyed  the 
temple  and  built  a  Spanish  cathedral  in  its  place." 

"  Ah,"  said  Pedro,  "  that  Cortez  was  certainly  a 
bad  man,  no  matter  what  you  say." 

Manuel  laughed  again.  "  The  teacher  said  the 
Spaniards  did  much  for  Mexico  in  the  way  of 
progress,"  he  repeated.  "  They  built  many  cities, 
and  perhaps  if  it  had  not  been  for  them  we  should 
not  have  become  the  United  States  of  Mexico,  with 
our  beautiful  flag  and  our  good  president." 

"  Yes,  it  is  a  beautiful  flag1,"  said  Pedro,  "  and 
we  can  never  forget  the  Aztecs  while  we  keep  their 
eagle  flying  on  it." 

The  eagle  that  Pedro  spoke  of,  keeps  fresh  in 
the  Mexican  mind  the  story  of  the  wanderings  of 
the  Aztec  people  when  they  were  looking  for  a 
place  to  build  their  capital  city.  For  more  than 
seven  hundred  years  they  had  been  journeying  from 
place  to  place ;  but  at  last  they  received  a  sign  that 
they  were  to  wander  no  more. 

They   reached   the   shores   of   a   beautiful    lake, 


MANUEL,    THE   TEACHER  4! 

and  there,  on  a  small  island,  they  saw  an  unusually 
large  and  splendid  eagle.  It  stood  poised  upon  a 
plant  of  prickly  cactus,  with  its  wings  outspread 
toward  the  rising  sun,  and  in  its  beak  it  held  a 
serpent. 

The  Aztecs  accepted  the  sign,  built  the  city, 
which  is  near  the  City  of  Mexico,  beside  the  lake, 
and  took  the  eagle  for  their  emblem.  To-day  it 
flies  upon  the  red,  white  and  green  of  the  Mexican 
flag. 

It  was  not  strange  that  Pedro  felt  his  heart  beat 
faster  when  he  thought  of  the  flag.  "  No  one  shall 
ever  take  it  away  from  us  again,"  he  said.  He 
stood  as  he  spoke,  and  looked  as  if  he  wished  some 
one  would  dare  to  try  it  that  very  minute.  He 
felt  strong  enough  to  conquer  a  whole  army. 

Juan  moved  in  his  chair.  He  had  caught  some 
of  Pedro's  spirit.  "  What  about  Hidalgo,  of  whom 
Grandmother  Juana  spoke  first  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  He  was  a  priest,  and  he  made  plans  to  lead 
an  armed  force  against  the  Spaniards,  but  his  plans 
were  all  found  out  before  he  was  ready  to  strike. 

"  He  heard  of  the  discovery  of  his  plans  at  eleven 
o'clock,  on  the  night  of  the  fifteenth  of  September, 
1821.  Although  he  knew  that  he  would  very  likely 
be  killed  in  the  end,  he  had  the  church  bells  rung, 
and  when  all  the  people  ran  out  of  their  houses,  he 
met  them  with  a  gun  in  one  hand  and  a  torch  in 


42  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

the  other,  crying,  '  Long  live  America,  and  death  to 
bad  government ! ' ' 

"  Oh,  I  know  those  words ! "  cried  little  Jose. 
"  It  is  '  The  Grito.'  There  is  more  to  it,  and  our 
President  says  the  words  from  the  palace  where 
he  lives,  at  just  that  same  time  in  the  evening, 
every  year,  on  the  fifteenth  of  September.  But 
I  did  not  know  why  he  says  it." 

"Was  Hidalgo  killed?"  asked  Juan. 

"  Yes,  in  the  very  next  year  he  was  betrayed, 
captured  and  beheaded.  But  the  teacher  said  he  had 
started  a  fire  that  was  never  allowed  to  die  out." 

"  I  should  like  to  have  fought  with  him,"  said 
Juan. 

"  There  was  one  peon  who  became  noted  for 
what  he  did  for  Hidalgo  and  Mexico,"  said  Manuel. 
"  There  was  a  great  building  in  one  of  the  cities, 
and  Hidalgo  felt  that  he  must  capture  it,  but  it 
was  filled  with  Spaniards  who  fought  him  back 
when  he  tried  to  break  down  the  door. 

"  Hidalgo  called  for  some  one  who  would  be 
willing  to  risk  his  life  and  set  fire  to  the  door. 
A  peon  offered  to  do  it.  He  took  a  great  flat 
stone  from  the  mountain-side  and  held  it  over  his 
back  so  that  nothing  thrown  down  upon  him  from 
above  could  hurt  him.  Then  he  carried  a  fire- 
brand to  the  doors  and  set  them  afire. 

"  They   burned,   and   Hidalgo   was   able   to   get 


MANUEL,    THE   TEACHER  43 

inside  with  his  men  and  force  the  Spaniards  to 
surrender." 

Juan  gave  a  shout  for  the  peon,  and  it  roused 
old  Juana.  "  What  did  you  say  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Manuel  has  been  telling  us  what  he  learned  in 
the  school,"  he  shouted  in  answer. 

She  looked  at  him  with  a  startled  face.  "  When 
did  Manuel  go  to  the  school  ?  "  she  asked  quickly. 

Manuel  had  never  told  her  that  he  was  going 
to  school,  because  he  did  not  think  there  was  any 
need  of  it.  He  had  always  spent  his  days  as  he 
pleased,  and  he  was  surprised  to  see  old  Juana's 
look  of  dismay  when  he  told  her  now  that  he  had 
been  to  the  school  and  learned  to  read. 

"  It  was  a  bad  thing  to  do,"  she  said. 

"  Yes,"  said  Benito,  "  I  told  him  so  myself  be- 
fore he  went,  but  it  has  turned  out  all  right,  for 
he  will  tell  us  much  that  we  ought  to  know." 

Old  Juana  looked  at  Manuel  strangely,  then  she 
went  out  of  the  little  room  to  wander  under  the 
stars  and  think  by  herself. 

The  boys  also  went  out,  one  by  one,  through 
the  doorway  to  their  cheerless  quarters.  No  Mexi- 
can ever  speaks  of  his  house  as  a  home,  but  Juana's 
clean  little  room  with  the  bright  colored  labels 
stuck  over  the  walls  was  more  like  a  home,  with 
its  atmosphere  of  love,  than  any  other  in  the 
hacienda. 


CHAPTER  IX 
JUANA'S  MEMORIES 

When  old  Juana  went  back  into  the  room  she 
found  both  the  boys  fast  asleep.  She  stood  for 
a  long  time  looking  down  upon  the  dark  form  of 
Manuel.  The  moonlight  streamed  across  the  floor 
and  touched  his  strong  face,  making  him  look  older 
than  he  was,  because  of  the  shadows. 

Was  it  only  ten  years  ago,  she  thought,  that  she 
took  him  from  his  handsome  father  and  promised 
to  bring  him  up  to  be  a  peon  laborer? 

The  boy  was  wrapped  in  a  scrape  of  many  bright 
colors.  His  head  lay  upon  a  straw  mat,  and  the 
sight  of  him  was  good  to  old  Juana's  eyes.  She 
thought  of  the  many  times  that  she  had  stood  so 
and  looked  down  at  him,  and  her  heart  grew  warm. 

"  It  is  of  no  use,"  she  muttered  at  last.  "  I 
shall  have  to  tell  him.  He  is  different  from  the 
others,  and  he  will  surely  find  it  out  for  himself." 

She  went  into  the  farthest  corner  of  the  room, 
where  she  lay  down  in  her  own  blanket,  but  not 
to  sleep.  Her  mind  followed  step  by  step  the  long 
years  of  her  life,  and  the  many  strange  sights  she 
had  seen. 

In  her  youth  she  had  been  in  the  midst  of  fight- 
44 


JUANA'S  MEMORIES  45 

ing  and  bloodshed,  and  she  could  have  told  the 
boys  of  many  lawless  acts  that  had  taken  place  on 
the  road  over  which  they  scampered  on  the  backs 
of  their  burros. 

Three  times  in  one  day  had  Don  Felipe's  father 
been  robbed  by  bandits  between  the  hacienda  and 
the  place  where  the  station  stood.  It  had  needed 
just  such  an  iron  hand  as  that  of  Porfirio  Diaz  to 
crush  the  spirit  of  lawlessness  that  raged  for  years 
in  Mexico. 

The  Indians  had  been  bad,  but  the  white  men 
had  also  done  cruel  things.  She  repeated  to  her- 
self the  words  of  an  old  saying,  "  The  whiter  the 
face,  the  blacker  the  heart." 

"  It  is  true !  "  she  muttered  in  anger.  "  The  soil 
of  Mexico  would  cry  out  in  a  frenzy  if  it  could  speak 
of  the  horrible  things  that  have  been  done  in  this 
beautiful  country." 

Benito  stirred  on  his  bedstead,  and  called  in  his 
sleep  for  Manuel.  The  name  carried  the  old 
woman's  thoughts  to  happier  things.  There  lay  the 
child  who  had  come  into  her  life  on  the  very  day 
of  her  return  from  the  great  Indian  fair  at  Ameca- 
meca,  ten  years  ago. 

She  had  bought  the  scrape  which  he  was  wear- 
ing now  from  a  Saltillo  Indian  at  that  fair.  It 
was  one  of  her  few  treasures,  but  it  pleased  her  to 
see  it  now  on  the  boy.  If  he  had  been  her  own 


46  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

child  she  could  not  have  loved  him  more  fondly. 

She  smiled  grimly  in  the  dusk  of  the  room  when 
she  remembered  that  at  first  she  had  refused  to 
take  him  from  the  handsome  Spaniard.  She  had 
said  that  she  was  too  old  to  have  the  care  of  a 
helpless  baby. 

The  journey  to  the  fair  had  been  long  and  hard, 
and  she  was  tired  when  she  reached  the  hacienda 
and  said  that  she  should  never  go  again.  Just  then 
the  stranger  stood  suddenly  before  her,  as  if  he 
had  been  dropped  from  the  skies,  and  asked  her 
to  keep  the  child  which  he  held  in  his  arms. 

"  It  is  a  crazy  thought,"  she  had  said.  "  How 
can  you  think  of  asking  an  old  woman  to  take  a 
baby  to  bring  up?  Besides,  it  is  not  the  custom." 

But  it  had  been  of  no  use.  The  Spaniards  were 
always  a  masterful  race,  and  in  the  end  he 
wheedled  the  child  into  her  arms,  where  it  stayed. 
Then  he  went  away,  and  the  rest  of  the  story  was 
as  Manuel  had  told  it  to  Donna  Hulita. 

As  soon  as  her  old  bones  were  rested  from  her 
long  journey  to  the  fair,  she  found  that  a  little 
baby  in  her  room  added  greatly  to  its  appearance. 

However,  as  soon  as  the  baby  could  roll,  he  took 
matters  into  his  own  hands  by  rolling  through  the 
doorway  and  out  of  doors,  where  he  spent  the  rest 
of  his  days,  until  Donna  Hulita  sent  him  over  the 
mountain. 


JUANA'S  MEMORIES  47 

Old  Juana,  lying  on  the  floor  with  open  eyes, 
could  not  look  far  enough  into  the  future  to  see 
Donna  Hulita  doing  such  a  thing.  She  could  only 
see  that  when  the  very  next  day  dawned  she  must 
tell  Manuel  his  story,  no  matter  what  happened. 

She  told  him  while  she  patted  her  tortillas  for 
breakfast.  Being  so  early  in  the  morning,  it  was 
cold,  and  Manuel  shivered  as  he  listened  to  her 
words  and  the  monotonous  sound  made  by  the  soft 
patting  of  the  cakes  from  one  hand  to  the  other. 

If  Benito,  listening  from  his  bed,  had  not  known 
the  sound  so  well,  he  might  have  thought  that  all 
the  peon  mothers  in  the  hacienda  were  slapping 
their  babies  for  the  day.  But  Benito  knew  the 
sound,  and  he  knew  also  that  Mexican  mothers  do 
not  slap  their  babies.  They  tie  them  in  the  rebosos 
on  the  backs  of  the  older  sisters,  and  so  dispose 
of  them  for  hours  at  a  time. 

Many  years  after  that  morning,  in  a  far-away  city 
where  mothers  are  less  tender-hearted,  Benito 
heard  the  sound  of  a  mother  slapping  a  child,  and 
there  flashed  into  his  memory  the  scene  of  that 
early  morning  in  Mexico.  He  saw  again  the  open 
door,  the  charcoal  fire  outside,  and  an  Indian 
woman  beside  it  slapping  cakes  from  one  hand  to 
the  other,  while  a  handsome  boy  stood  before  her, 
his  face  tense  with  feeling. 


CHAPTER  X 
DONNA  HULITA'S  CALL 

As  the  old  woman  finished  her  story,  the  great 
gates  of  the  hacienda  were  suddenly  thrown  open 
and  Don  Felipe's  finest  pair  of  horses  was  driven 
through,  bringing  Donna  Hulita  from  Mexico  City. 

Manuel  looked  from  the  old  woman  to  the  car- 
riage of  the  younger  one.  He  felt  that  in  some 
way  his  life  was  to  be  changed,  and  he  shivered 
again  with  excitement.  Nevertheless,  the  tortillas 
tasted  very  good  as  he  ate  them  by  Benito's  bed- 
side and  talked  old  Juana's  story  over  with  his 
friend. 

Benito  watched  Manuel's  eyes  and  for  once  for- 
got about  the  band.  He,  also,  felt  that  their  life 
was  to  be  different.  His  own  eyes  suddenly 
blurred  with  tears.  "  I  am  only  a  stupid  boy,"  he 
said,  "  and  have  never  cared  because  things  were 
not  different,  but  if  you  go  away  to  hunt  for  a 
father,  or  anything  like  that,  I  shall  die." 

Manuel  put  his  head  on  the  bed  beside  Benito's. 
"  You  stupid  Benito,"  he  said,  "  you  are  always  go- 
ing to  die.  But  if  you  do,  I  am  going  to  die,  too. 
48 


DONNA  HULITA'S  CALL  49 

I  can  do  without  a  father,  but  I  could  do  nothing 
without  you." 

Then,  boy-like,  the  two  began  to  build  air-castles. 

"  We  will  make  many  feather  brushes,"  said 
Manuel,  "  which  we  will  take  to  the  market  in 
Puebla.  There  we  can  get  enough  money  for  them 
to  carry  us  to  Mexico  City." 

Benito's  eyes  sparkled.  "  I  have  heard  that  the 
angels  helped  to  build  the  city  of  Puebla,"  he  said. 

"  It  is  true,"  answered  Manuel,  who  of  course, 
believed  the  story.  "  That  is  why  it  is  called  '  The 
City  of  the  Angels.'" 

"  Ah,"  said  Benito,  with  a  mighty  sigh,  "  it  will 
be  good  to  sell  feather  brushes  there." 

"  After  we  get  to  Mexico  City,"  continued 
Manuel,  "  we  can  black  shoes  until  we  have  earned 
many  pesos,  then  we  can  buy  some  fine  clothes  and 
work  in  an  office." 

Benito  knocked  his  head  affectionately  against 
Manuel's.  "  You  will  think  of  nothing  but  fine 
clothes,  old  Manuelito,"  he  said. 

For  a  moment  longer  they  lay  with  their  heads 
together,  and  that  was  the  way  Donna  Hulita 
found  them  when  she  knocked  at  the  open  door. 

Manuel  went  to  the  door  and  greeted  her  quietly 
enough,  but  his  heart  beat  its  way  into  his  throat. 

"  Buenos  dias,  what  a  very  pleasant  room,"  said 
Donna  Hulita. 


5O  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

"  It  is  yours,  if  you  like,"  answered  Manuel,  and 
placed  Juana's  good  chair  for  her  to  sit  in. 

Old  Juana  also  offered  the  room  and  everything 
in  it  to  her  visitor,  when  she  found  that  Donna 
Hulita  thought  the  pictures  of  the  red  tomatoes 
very  attractive. 

Many  things  are  done  in  Mexico  which  are  not 
according  to  custom,  nowadays,  old  Juana  would 
say,  but  there  is  one  custom  in  that  country  which 
never  varies.  When  one  Mexican  admires  some- 
thing which  belongs  to  another,  he  is  told  with 
great  politeness  that  it  is  his. 

At  the  time  Grandmother  Juana  accepted  the 
baby  as  a  part  of  her  daily  life  she  spoke  to  all 
her  friends  among  the  peon  women  and  told  them 
there  was  a  little  peon  at  their  service  in  her  house. 
So  are  they  always  courteous  among  themselves  as 
well  as  to  their  masters.  And,  on  the  other  hand, 
masters  and  mistresses  treat  their  servants  with 
the  same  courtesy. 

When  old  Juana  offered  her  tomato  labels  to 
Donna  Hulita,  she  did  not  think  that  the  great  lady 
would  carry  them  home  with  her.  Donna  Hulita 
understood.  She  would  do  the  same  thing  her- 
self, should  a  visitor  admire  the  beautiful  paint- 
ings on  the  walls  of  her  casa.  It  is  the  pleasant 
way  of  opening  a  call  in  Mexico. 

But  this  morning  Donna  Hulita  was  not  really 


DONNA  HULITA'S  CALL  51 

making  a  call.  She  had  come  on  very  important 
business. 

She  asked  for  Manuel's  story,  and  Juana  could 
not  help  thinking  how  fortunate  it  was  that  she 
had  told  it  to  Manuel  already,  for  Donna  Hulita 
had  come  to  take  the  boy  from  the  little  home  of 
Juana's  making  to  something  very,  grand  in  the 
City  of  Mexico. 

Don  Felipe's  father,  Senor  Gomez,  lived  in 
Mexico  City,  and  Donna  Hulita  found,  while  on 
her  visit,  that  his  wife  had  taken  a  fancy  to  have 
another  page  in  her  service.  Donna  Hulita  had 
never  forgotten  the  handsome  boy  who  stood  so 
unexpectedly  before  her  one  day.  She  told  Seiiora 
Gomez  about  him  and  promised  to  send  the  boy 
to  her. 

There  was  another  thought  also  in  Donna  Hu- 
lita's  mind.  There  was  a  look  in  Manuel's  face 
which  reminded  her  of  some  one  who  had  once 
been  very  dear  to  Senora  Gomez,  but  of  whom 
nothing  had  been  heard  for  many  years.  She 
wondered  if  Senora  Gomez  would  see  the  same 
look. 

Donna  Hulita  wished  to  have  the  boy  start  at 
once.  One  of  the  hacienda  overseers  was  going 
to  Mexico  City  by  train  that  very  day,  and  Manuel 
might  go  with  him,  she  said. 

Donna  Hulita  had  never  had  any  other  way  than 


52  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO  • 

her  own  before,  but  she  did  not  have  it  with 
Manuel. 

"  I  could  not  go  away  and  leave  Benito  on  the 
bedstead,"  he  said  very  gently  indeed.  Then  he 
added,  "  I  do  not  wish  to  leave  Benito  at  all." 

Something  in  old  Juana's  face,  also,  made  him 
go  to  her  and  put  his  hand  into  hers.  "  Do  you 
wish  me  to  stay  here  with  you  ?  "  he  asked. 

Old  Juana  did  not  forget  to  be  polite.  "If 
Donna  Hulita  wishes  it,"  she  said  in  a  voice  that 
shook,  "  it  is  to  be  permitted." 

Then  the  lady  looked  at  Benito.  "  What  do  you 
say,  Benito  ?  "  she  asked. 

Benito's  face  flushed.  In  his  mind  he  had  seen 
the  picture  of  Manuel  and  himself  at  work  side 
by  side  as  they  had  often  ridden  side  by  side,  in 
their  play,  on  the  burros.  He  could  form  no 
picture  of  a  life  indoors  behind  adobe  or  brick 
walls.  He  did  not  believe  that  Manuel  could  be 
happy  when  shut  within  the  walls  of  a  casa. 

So  he  said  in  answer  to  Donna  Hulita,  "  We 
have  made  a  plan  by  which  we  may  both  be  to- 
gether and  stay  out  of  doors.  That  is  good  for 
Manuel,  because  he  must  always  be  out  of  doors 
where  he  can  see  the  mountains." 

He  told  the  plan  and  she  listened  with  much 
sympathy,  and  then  said  gently,  "  But  it  would 
take  you  a  long  time  to  earn  money  in  that  way. 


DONNA  HULITA'S  CALL  53 

Senora  Gomez  will  have  pretty  clothes  all  ready 
for  Manuel  when  he  goes  into  her  service.  She 
is  going  to  dress  him  just  as  Don  Felipe  is  dressed, 
with  silver  buttons  on  his  embroidered  leather 
clothes,  and  a  beautiful  red  and  blue  sash.  He 
will  look  like  a  little  hacendado." 

Benito  had  nothing  more  to  say.  He  fixed  his 
eyes  upon  Manuel's  face,  while  Manuel  fixed  his 
upon  Donna  Hulita. 

"  I  do  not  know,"  said  Manuel  at  last.  "  I  can- 
not tell  now.  Perhaps  I  can  tell  to-morrow." 

It  was  almost  the  first  time  in  his  life  that  the 
boy  had  used  the  common  Mexican  expression, 
"  hasta  manana  "  (until  to-morrow),  but  there  was 
good  reason  for  his  using  it  now. 

Until  to-morrow  they  could  talk  together,  they 
three,  about  the  old  life  and  what  the  new  one 
would  be  like,  were  Manuel  to  go  across  the  moun- 
tains at  last. 

As  for  Donna  Hulita,  back  in  the  great  casa,  she 
smiled  to  think  that  she  had  not  gained  her  way. 
"  Until  to-morrow !  "  she  repeated.  "  How  these 
peons  do  put  everything  off  until  to-morrow." 
Then  she  remembered  that  Manuel  was  not  really 
a  peon.  His  father  was  a  Spaniard,  and  his  name, 
the  name  that  old  Juana  gave  to  him,  was  that  of 
Don  Felipe's  own  family. 

"  It  will  be  better  for  him  to  take  another  name," 


54  MANUEL    IN    MEXICO 

she  said  to  herself.  "  If  he  goes  to  Senora  Go- 
mez, he  shall  go  as  Manuel  Juarez."  Then  she 
added,  after  a  moment's  thought,  "If  the  look  in 
his  face  means  anything,  he  will  go." 

She  was  not  wrong  in  her  thought.  Manuel,  on 
the  next  day,  stood  once  again  before  her  and  said 
he  would  go  to  Mexico  City  and  become  a  page  to 
Senora  Gomez.  "  But,"  he  added,  "  Benito  must 
go  also." 

Donna  Hulita  smiled.  "  I  thought  Benito  could 
not  be  moved  from  the  bedstead,"  she  said. 

"  We  will  wait  one  week  before  we  go,"  said 
Manuel,  "  then  Benito  will  be  the  same  as  always. 
The  doctor  said  so." 

"  Ah  well,"  said  the  lady,  "  it  will  make  no  dif- 
ference to  Senora  Gomez.  It  shall  be  as  you  say." 

When  Benito  heard  of  the  decision  he  looked 
beyond  the  open  doorway  to  the  mountain-top. 
Something  of  Manuel's  look  was  in  his  face  as 
he  said,  "  It  is  a  good  thing  that  I  should  be  with 
you,  Manuel,  else  when  you  get  to  the  mountain- 
top  you  may  think  the  stars  are  only  flowers  under 
your  feet." 

The  tears  sprang  to  Manuel's  eyes.  "  My  Ben- 
ito," he  said,  "  this  hacienda,  where  we  have  played 
together,  and  where  the  flowers  grow,  will  always 
be  the  dearest  place  in  the  world  to  us  both." 


CHAPTER  XI 

CASTLES  IN  THE  AIR 

The  week  dwindled  away  until  only  a  couple  of 
days  were  left  before  the  two  boys  were  to  start 
on  their  journey.  There  had  been  many  talks  be- 
tween Manuel,  Benito,  and  the  band. 

Jose  had  once  been  on  the  train  as  far  as  Puebla, 
and  could  tell  the  boys  of  the  sights  to  be  seen  from 
the  car  windows.  They  were  all  much  interested 
in  the  stories  he  could  tell  of  his  travels. 

"  Did  all  the  peon  boys  who  lived  near  the  sta- 
tions go  to  meet  the  trains  as  we  do  ?  "  asked  one 
of  the  band. 

"  Yes,"  said  Jose,  "  but  nowhere  were  there 
such  good  looking  Indians  as  ours,  and  they  stood 
very  still  as  if  they  did  not  know  how  to  play  as 
many  good  games  as  we  do." 

"  No  one  could  have  such  good  times  as  we  do 
at  Don  Felipe's  hacienda,"  said  Juan.  As  he  spoke 
it  was  plainly  to  be  seen  that  his  old  sullen  scowl 
was  gone,  and  he  looked  bright  and  happy.  The 
boys  no  longer  called  him  "  Black  Juan." 

"  But   if   Manuel   and   Benito   go   away,"    said 
55 


56  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

Pedro,  "  we  shall  have  no  more  good  times."  He 
looked  ready  to  cry  at  the  thought. 

"  Perhaps  we  are  ready  for  something  else,"  said 
Juan,  who  it  seemed  had  always  thought  a  little  for 
himself.  "  It  is  not  well  to  be  playing  burro-corrido 
when  one  is  no  longer  a  child." 

"  Yes,"  said  Pedro,  "  we  also  may  work  as  the 
burros  do,  and  earn  pesos  for  Don  Felipe." 

"But  why  not,  if  it  is  the  custom?"  asked  the 
band,  anxious  to  hear  Jose  tell  more  of  his  journey. 

"  One  could  see  villages  and  haciendas  from 
the  car  windows,"  said  Jose,  "  and  sometimes  a 
river  with  women  washing  clothes  in  the  water. 
At  an  hacienda  station  I  saw  a  man  carrying  lunch- 
baskets  on  a  long  pole  over  his  shoulder,  just  as 
Pedro  often  carries  the  lunches  to  our  own  laborers 
in  the  fields.  At  another  place  many  Indians  were 
gathered  for  a  picnic,  and  for  a  moment  I  heard  the 
sound  of  the  music  to  which  they  were  dancing." 

The  band  drew  its  breath  at  Jose's  words. 
Often,  in  the  evening,  when  the  day's  work  was 
over,  some  one  in  their  own  hacienda  played  on 
the  guitar  or  tambourine,  and  they  loved  the  sound. 
At  times  one  of  their  number  would  appear  with 
a  borrowed  guitar  which  each  would  handle  lov- 
ingly, picking  some  little  melody  from  the  strings. 

Sitting  beside  Benito's  bedstead,  as  they  had  done 
so  much  in  these  last  days,  speaking  of  things 


Washing  Clothes  in  the  River.     Page  56. 


Carrying  Luncheon-Baskets.     Page  56. 


CASTLES    IN   THE   AIR  57 

which  stirred  them  strangely,  a  change  had  come 
over  the  boys  of  which  they  themselves  were  hardly 
conscious. 

Juan  had  expressed  it,  but  did  not  realize  all 
that  it  meant,  when  he  had  said,  "  Perhaps  we  are 
ready  for  something  else."  And  now  Manuel  sur- 
prised them  all  by  suddenly  saying  "  It  is  a  bad 
custom." 

The  boys  looked  at  him  in  amazement,  as  he 
continued  in  an  excited  voice,  "  We  need  not  al- 
ways do  as  the  peons  do,  work  for  Don  Felipe  a 
whole  lifetime." 

"  That  is  true,"  said  Pedro  approvingly,  "  we  will 
play  a  little  now  and  then." 

Manuel  looked  at  him  in  despair,  but  Juan  under- 
stood what  was  in  Manuel's  mind,  even  while 
Benito  was  speaking  from  the  bed. 

"  It  is  that  we  must  earn  centavos  and  save 
them,  and  in  the  end  we  can  have  a  burro  and  a 
house  of  our  own,"  he  said. 

"  Ah,"  said  Juan,  "  if  Manuel  and  Benito  are 
going  to  leave  the  hacienda  and  dress  like  hacen- 
dados,  who  knows  but  they  may  become  real  ones  ?  " 

The  band  opened  their  eyes  and  were  speech- 
less. The  two  ideas  were  hard  to  manage  at  first. 

It  would  be  very  pleasant  to  own  a  house,  a 
little  thatched  hut,  and  a  burro.  That  thought 
lodged  in  their  minds  and  never  left  them. 


58  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

At  the  same  time  they  believed  that  the  two 
boys  who  were  going  to  Mexico  City  were  to  be- 
come hacendados.  The  two  thoughts  never  dis- 
puted with  one  another. 

"  Sometime,  when  I  have  driven  my  burro  to  the 
market  with  a  load  of  pottery,"  said  Juan,  "  Manuel 
and  Benito  will  ride  along  on  their  fine  horses  and 
buy  it  all  from  me." 

Not  one  of  the  boys  had  ever  earned  a  single 
centavo,  but  that  made  no  difference.  Before  the 
two  days  were  passed  they  had  built  many  thatched 
huts  with  the  pesos  they  were  going  to  earn,  and 
each  saw  himself  the  owner  of  a  long  procession 
of  burros. 

But  Manuel  built  no  such  castles  in  the  air.  He 
hunted  up  little  Pepita  and  said  good-bye  to  her. 

"  I  am  not  making  the  hard  signs  in  the  school 
now,"  she  told  him.  "  Nothing  ever  came  of  them. 
But  one  can  wear  pretty  clothes  after  one  has 
learned  to  make  them." 

As  she  spoke,  she  held  up  a  little  frame  in  which 
she  was  making  drawn-work  on  a  piece  of  coarse 
linen. 

Manuel  pleased  the  little  girl  by  taking  much 
interest  in  the  pattern  she  was  making  with  the 
threads. 

"  The  cook  in  the  big  casa  is  showing  me  how  to 
do  it,"  said  Pepita.  "  This  picture  in  the  border  is 


Pepita  in  the  Doorway.     Page  58. 


CASTLES    IN   THE   AIR  59 

a  butterfly,  and  the  one  in  the  middle  is  going  to 
be  the  Mexican  eagle." 

"  It  looks  very  pretty,"  said  Manuel,  "  but  I  could 
make  the  signs  in  the  school  more  easily,  myself." 

Pepita  stood  in  the  doorway  on  the  morning  when 
Manuel  and  Benito  rode  out,  with  one  of  the 
overseers,  to  go  to  the  station  at  Santa  Ana. 
Manuel's  band  was  there,  too,  and  one  of  the  boys 
picked  a  little  tune  on  the  guitar,  while  the  rest 
stood  in  a  group  about  him. 

Grandmother  Juana  had  left  the  corn  she  was 
grinding,  and  stood  also  in  the  group,  tears  rolling 
down  her  wrinkled  cheeks. 

The  boys  saw  them  all  plainly,  but  little  Pepita, 
waving  her  frame  of  drawn-work,  stood  out  clearer 
than  the  rest. 

For  a  long  time  after  the  carriage  had  passed  out 
of  sight,  the  boys  of  the  band  stood  at  the  gateway. 

Then  Jose  said  with  a  sigh,  "  I  wonder  how  it 
would  seem  to  ride  in  a  carriage  behind  real 
horses." 

But  Juan  looked  toward  the  mountain-top  and 
said,  "  Over  there  is  the  land  where  silver  and 
gold  lie  in  the  streets.  Manuel  and  Benito  can 
lean  from  their  carriage  door  and  pick  it  up." 

Old  Juana  asked  him  to  repeat  his  words,  and 
when  at  last  he  made  her  understand,  she  seemed 
very  angry.  "  There  is  nothing  of  the  sort,"  she 


6O  MANUEL    IN    MEXICO 

said.  "  There  is  misery  and  dirt  in  that  city  where 
they  are  going.  I  would  not  live  there  myself 
for  all  the  silver  and  gold  in  the  whole  world." 

But  the  boys  did  not  believe  her. 

"  Where  Manuel  and  Benito  are  there  is  always 
happiness,"  they  said  loyally  to  each  other. 

And  from  that  moment  it  became  their  golden 
dream  to  go  some  day,  all  together,  across  the 
mountain,  to  find  Manuel  and  Benito  in  that  won- 
derful City  of  Mexico. 


CHAPTER  XII 

A   RIDE   ON   THE  TRAIN 

Not  one  of  the  soldiers  of  Montezuma  ever  felt 
more  excitement  in  going  forth  to  battle  than  did 
Manuel  and  Benito  when  they  seated  themselves 
in  the  train  to  begin  their  journey. 

"  It  is  a  pity  that  the  boys  could  not  come  on 
the  burros  to  the  station  to  see  us  off,"  said  Benito. 
Just  then  the  guard  called  "  Vamonos ! "  The 
train  started,  and  the  two  held  their  breath  for 
joy. 

Benito  forgot  the  band  and  clutched  Manuel's 
arm.  "  This  is  better  than  galloping  on  the  old 
burros,"  he  shouted,  thinking  that  Manuel  had  sud- 
denly gone  deaf.  Manuel  was  looking  with  a 
fascinated  gaze  to  see  objects  flying  past  the  car 
windows. 

At  the  next  station  they  remembered  the  band, 
because  a  group  of  Indians  stood  on  the  platform 
with  canes  to  sell.  The  canes  had  beautiful  carved 
heads  which  took  the  fancy  of  the  tourists  in  the 
first-class  cars. 

Manuel  and  Benito  were  travelling  in  the  second- 
61 


62  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

class  car.  As  Manuel  saw  how  many  of  the  canes 
were  sold,  he  said,  "  It  is  a  pity  the  boys  could 
not  see  them.  They  could  soon  learn  to  carve 
heads  on  canes,  and  they  could  earn  many  centavos 
in  the  same  way." 

"  But  the  boys  have  no  knives,"  said  Benito. 
"  They  must  first  earn  the  centavos  to  buy  the 
knives  before  they  can  make  the  canes." 

However  they  soon  forgot  the  boys  again,  for 
there  was  some  wonderful  new  sight  to  see  every 
moment. 

"  There  is  a  maguey  field  like  our  own,"  cried 
Benito. 

"  Oh,  a  bridge,  a  bridge !  "  shouted  Manuel. 

The  bridge  over  which  the  train  was  passing  was 
so  high  in  the  air  that  the  boys  could  hardly  see 
the  river  below. 

"  Jose  did  not  begin  to  tell  us  all  the  wonderful 
things,"  said  Benito. 

Suddenly  Manuel  called,  "  See  the  beautiful 
casas ! " 

"  They  are  not  all  casas,"  explained  the  over- 
seer. "  Many  of  them  are  churches." 

Manuel  saw  in  the  distance  the  colored  domes 
of  the  churches  of  the  City  of  the  Angels.  They 
glistened  in  the  sunshine  in  colors  of  white,  red, 
brown,  yellow,  blue  and  gray,  and  the  sight  filled 
the  boys  with  joy. 


A  RIDE   ON   THE   TRAIN  63 

"  I  think  the  angels  may  live  there  now,"  said 
little  Benito. 

But  the  overseer  was  telling  them  about  the 
battle-field  to  the  north  of  the  city  of  Puebla. 
"  Eleven  times  have  armies  gathered  before  the 
gates  of  this  city,"  he  said. 

Manuel  thought  to  himself  that  it  was  a  great 
pity  that  he  could  not  have  seen  something  of  the 
glory  of  it  all,  but  the  overseer  went  on,  "  No  place 
in  all  Mexico  is  more  famous.  Here  fought  our 
great  generals,  Iturbide,  Zaragoza,  and  Diaz." 

"  Hear  him,"  whispered  Benito.  "  What  a 
mouthful  of  words  he  takes.  I  wish  Pedro  could 
try  them.  It  would  set  him  to  choking." 

But  Manuel  was  asking  about  the  great  hill  to 
the  left  of  the  city. 

"  That  is  the  pyramid  that  was  built  hundreds 
of  years  before  Cortez  saw  America,"  answered 
the  overseer.  "  From  the  cathedral  on  top  of  the 
pyramid  one  can  see  a  mighty  distance.  On  the 
plain  there  are  many  villages,  each  one  with  a 
church  tower  rising  above  the  low  roofs.  Fifty- 
seven  churches  can  be  seen  from  the  cathedral." 

Even  Benito  was  quiet  for  a  moment  to  think 
what  a  sight  it  must  be. 

They  left  Puebla  behind  them,  and  Benito  began 
to  feel  strange.  "  I  do  not  know  what  is  the  mat- 
ter here,"  he  said,  putting  his  hand  over  his  heart. 


64  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

The  overseer  heard  him  and  said,  "  I  think  it  is 
the  beginning  of  homesickness." 

He  was  sure  of  it  presently  when  the  child  put 
his  hand  to  his  eyes  and  brushed  away  a  tear. 

It  was  the  sight  of  many  burros  toiling  patiently 
over  the  plain  and  carrying  heavy  burdens  for 
their  Indian  masters  who  trudged  along  beside 
them,  that  reminded  him  of  home. 

But  he  tried  to  make  the  overseer  think  the  tear 
was  for  pity  of  the  poor  beasts.  "  They  never  have 
any  time  to  play,"  he  said. 

The  man  understood  and  smiled.  "  When  we 
heard  that  the  steam-engine  was  coming  to  Mexico," 
he  said,  "  we  thought  it  would  make  the  burros'  load 
much  lighter,  but  there  seems  to  be  no  difference." 

Then  he  thought  of  something  to  divert  Benito's 
mind.  "  The  first  engine  and  cars  that  were  car- 
ried to  Mexico  City,"  he  said,  "  had  to  be  dragged 
in  pieces  over  the  mountains  by  mules." 

Benito  began  to  listen.  "  How  many  pieces 
were  there  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Oh,  a  great  many,"  answered  the  overseer  care- 
lessly. "  The  pieces  were  loaded  into  wagons,  and 
the  roads  over  the  mountain-passes  were  so  hard 
to  climb  that  sometimes  sixty-six  mules  had  to  pull 
together." 

The  boys  nodded  their  heads.  "  That  must  have 
been  a  fine  sight,"  they  said. 


A   RIDE   ON    THE   TRAIN  65 

"  Yes,"  replied  the  overseer.  "  Don  Felipe's 
father  drove  his  finest  horses  to  Mexico  City  to 
try  their  speed  against  that  of  the  steam-engine." 

"  Ah,  and  which  won  ?  "  asked  Manuel. 

"  The  steam-engine  always  won,  although  the 
engineer  sometimes  let  Don  Luis  think  he  was 
going  to  win." 

Benito  felt  no  more  homesickness.  The  train 
was  climbing  over  the  mountains  and  through  great 
passes.  Manuel  felt  as  if  he  were  at  last  among 
the  stars,  and  looked  in  wonder  at  the  valleys  they 
were  leaving  behind  them. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE    END    OF    THE    JOURNEY 

It  was  Benito  who  looked  forward  and  saw  the 
beautiful  lake.  "  This  is  the  lake  where  Cortez 
launched  his  boats,"  said  the  overseer. 

"  The  boats  which  the  Tlaxcalan  Indians  in  our 
own  state  helped  him  to  make  ?  "  asked  Manuel. 

"  Yes." 

"  And  I  suppose  they  took  the  boats  also  to 
pieces  and  brought  them  up  here,"  said  Benito,  who 
did  not  suppose  it  at  all. 

"  Yes,  that  is  just  what  they  did,"  was  the  an- 
swer. "  The  boats  were  small,  flat-bottomed  ones, 
which  could  be  easily  taken  apart  and  put  together 
again,  and  eight  thousand  Tlaxcalan  Indians  car- 
ried them  over  the  mountains  on  their  backs." 

"  I  almost  wish  I  had  lived  then,"  said  Benito ; 
but  he  thought  of  the  sights  before  them,  and  the 
many  new  things  to  find  out  about,  and  shook  his 
head.  "  It  is  best  as  it  is,"  he  said,  "  there  are  still 
good  times  to  be  had  for  the  making." 

"  How  do  you  suppose  Cortez  felt  when  he  first 
saw  the  City  of  Mexico?"  asked  Manuel. 

"  I  never  heard  what  he  said,"  replied  the  over- 
seer, "  but  it  must  have  been  something  like, 
66 


THE   END   OF   THE   JOURNEY  67 

'  What  a  fine  lot  of  villages  to  destroy ! '  because 
he  went  to  work  at  once  to  destroy  them." 

"  How  long  do  you  think  it  took  him  ?  "  asked 
Benito. 

"  History  says  that  seventy-five  days  from  the 
time  he  went  to  conquer  the  Aztecs  the  valley  of 
Mexico  all  lay  in  one  smouldering  ruin." 

"  Pedro  was  right,"  said  the  boy  indignantly, 
"  he  was  a  bad  man." 

"  Well,  he  found  men  here  before  him  who  were 
just  as  bad.  One  of  these  men,  when  he  was  only 
a  boy,  tossed  his  nurse  into  the  well  because  she 
displeased  him.  His  name  was  Ixtlilxochitl." 

"  I  think  his  name  was  to  blame  for  it,"  said 
Manuel  with  a  laugh.  "  That  name  is  enough  to 
make  its  owner  do  something  pretty  bad." 

The  overseer  laughed  also.  "If  that  is  so,  those 
old  names  seem  to  have  worked  lots  of  mischief," 
he  said. 

"  Tell  us  some  more,"  said  Benito.  "  It  makes 
me  shiver  to  hear  it,  but  I  like  it." 

"  Ah,  Benito,"  said  Manuel,  "  you  would  never 
make  a  brave  soldier  if  you  must  shiver  when  you 
hear  such  tales." 

Benito  gave  Manuel  a  playful  blow  with  his  fist. 
"  Just  see  what  I  would  do  if  I  had  to  fight  for 
you,"  he  said. 

"  You  will  never  have  to  fight  for  me,"  answered 


68  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

Manuel,     quickly.      "  I     can     fight     for     myself." 

But  the  overseer  was  speaking  again.  "  Did  you 
ever  hear  of  Montezuma?"  he  asked. 

"  Yes,"  said  Manuel,  "  he  was  that  good  priest 
who  was  sweeping  out  the  temple  more  than  four 
hundred  years  ago  when  they  went  to  tell  him  that 
he  was  to  be  the  ruler  of  Mexico." 

"  That  is  right.  The  empire  became  a  very 
splendid  one  under  his  rule.  He  was  a  kingly 
looking  man,  and  when  he  went  to  war,  dressed  in 
his  war- feathers  and  armor,  it  must  have  been  a 
fine  sight." 

"  I  didn't  know  that  they  had  needles  and  thread 
to  make  clothes,  and  the  right  material  for  armor, 
four  hundred  years  ago,"  said  Benito,  opening  his 
eyes  wide  in  surprise. 

"  Oh,  yes,  they  always  had  the  maguey  plant  in 
Mexico.  The  Aztecs  got  good  thread  from  the 
fiber,  and  the  thorns  at  the  tip  of  the  leaves  make 
as  good  pins  and  needles  as  you  can  find  any- 
where." 

"  What  did  Senor  Montezuma  do  when  he  was 
not  making  pins  and  needles  or  going  to  war  ?  " 
asked  Benito  mischievously. 

"  He  was  building  fine  temples  and  statues  to 
put  into  them.  But  he  sometimes  looked  to  see  if 
the  gold-fish  in  his  tanks  were  in  good  condition,  for 
he  had  a  beautiful  garden  where  they  were  kept." 


THE   END   OF   THE   JOURNEY  69 

"  I  did  not  know  that  those  old  warriors  ever 
stopped  to  play,"  said  Manuel. 

"  Oh,  they  had  royal  games !  They  held  a 
jubilee  at  the  end  of  every  cycle,  which  was  better 
than  any  bull-fight  in  Mexico  to-day,"  said  the  over- 
seer. 

"  What  is  a  cycle  ?  "  asked  the  boy. 

"  It  is  a  certain  number  of  years.  With  the 
Aztecs  it  was  fifty-two  years.  At  the  end  of  every 
cycle  of  fifty-two  years  they  let  the  fires  in  all  of 
the  temples  go  out.  Then  the  priests  journeyed  to 
a  certain  mountain  where  they  held  a  festival,  and 
with  flint  and  tinder  they  lighted  a  new  fire  which 
was  to  burn  through  another  cycle." 

"  If  it  happened  only  once  in  fifty-two  years," 
said  Benito,  "  Montezuma  could  not  have  been  to 
many  such  festivals." 

"  No,  he  was  still  young  when  he  was  killed  by 
an  arrow  from  the  bow  of  his  own  nephew,  but 
he  reigned  in  great  splendor  while  he  was  em- 
peror." 

"  How  do  you  know  that,  if  it  happened  so 
many  years  ago  ?  "  asked  the  boy. 

"  Because  of  the  ruins  that  are  still  to  be  seen, 
and  the  stone  images  that  are  still  dug  from  the 
ground  where  they  have  lain  for  four  hundred  years 
and  more.  And  there  are  banners  and  ornaments  in 
our  museums  that  belonged  to  the  ancient  people." 


7O  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

"  It  is  very  wonderful,"  said  Manuel.  "  I 
should  like  to  see  some  of  the  things." 

But  Benito  was  tired  of  hearing  so  much  that 
was  old.  "  I  would  rather  hear  about  Don  Luis's 
house  where  we  are  going  to  live  in  the  oldest  city 
in  America,"  he  said.  "  I  hope  that  is  not  old 
also." 

"  No,"  said  the  overseer,  "  it  is  one  of  the  finest 
casas  in  the  city.  There  are  three  patios  inside 
the  walls,  and  there  is  much  gold  and  silver  about 
the  walls  and  stairways.  You  will  have  much  to 
learn  about  the  customs  of  the  family." 

Benito  looked  sober.  "  I  care  not  how  much 
gold  and  silver  is  in  the  casa,  if  there  are  only 
plenty  of  bright  flowers  growing  in  the  patios," 
he  said. 

"  There  are  plenty  of  both,"  was  the  answer. 

"  What  are  we  going  to  do  for  Senora  Gomez, 
after  she  has  dressed  us  in  fine  clothes  ? "  asked 
Manuel. 

"  You  will  run  every  time  she  claps  her  hands 
for  you,"  said  the  overseer.  He  was  a  man  who 
had  been  in  the  service  of  the  family  all  his  life, 
and  could  tell  the  boys  much  about  Senora  Gomez 
and  Don  Luis. 

"  I  can  run,"  said  Benito.  "  Manuel  was  the 
only  one  of  the  band  who  could  beat  me.  Senora 
Gomez  will  think  she  has  two  cargadors." 


THE   END   OF   THE   JOURNEY  Jl 

The  Mexican  cargador  is  a  man  of  burden,  just 
as  the  Mexican  burro  is  a  beast  of  burden.  He 
will  take  a  heavy  load  on  his  back  and  run  with  it 
for  miles.  For  many  centuries  he  was  the  only 
expressman  in  the  country.  It  was  in  Benito's 
mind  that  Senora  Gomez  wanted  him  and  Manuel 
in  her  casa  to  be  cargadors  for  her. 

"  But  I  do  not  see  how  she  can  keep  us  busy 
all  the  time,"  he  said  to  Manuel.  "  Sometimes  we 
will  slip  out  of  the  casa  and  find  our  way  to  the 
plaza.  There  must  be  music  in  the  plaza  just  as 
there  is  at  the  city  of  Tlaxcala." 

The  overseer  smiled  to  hear  the  two  boys  talk. 
He  saw  that  in  their  minds  the  City  of  Mexico  was 
very  much  like  the  little  city  of  their  native  state, 
which  had  seen  its  best  days  in  the  time  of  the  great 
Cortez. 

He  would  have  told  them  something  about  the 
beautiful  Alameda  where  the  pride  of  Mexico  can 
be  seen  every  Sunday;  something  about  the  wide 
streets,  the  shops,  the  electric  lights,  the  fountains 
and  monuments,  but  there  was  no  time.  The  train 
was  already  rolling  into  the  station  and  they  were 
at  last  in  the  country  beyond  the  mountains,  in  the 
city  of  their  dreams. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

MORNING  IN    MEXICO   CITY 

"  Manuel !  Manuelito !  " 

Benito  was  standing  at  the  head  of  the  stair- 
case which  in  Mexican  houses  leads  from  the  up- 
per balcony  to  the  patio  below.  This  patio  is  sur- 
rounded by  the  servants'  rooms,  offices  and  stables. 

Benito  sent  his  call  in  a  hoarse  whisper  straight 
down  the  marble  staircase  and  across  the  patio.  At 
the  stable  door  stood  Manuel,  stroking  the  nose  of 
a  beautiful  horse.  He  turned  and  looked  up  at 
Benito. 

It  was  a  wonder  that  Manuel  knew  the  boy  in 
such  splendid  clothes,  or  that  Benito  knew  Manuel, 
for  that  matter. 

An  embroidered  leather  suit  of  vest,  jacket  and 
trousers,  had  changed  the  ragged  little  boy  into  a 
distinguished  looking  senor. 

Benito's  hair  was  curly  and  his  eyes  were  always 
sparkling  with  laughter,  else  one  must  have  stood 
quite  in  awe  of  such  a  fine  looking  person. 

Manuel  was  dressed  exactly  as  Benito  was.  The 
only  difference  between  them  was  in  their  hair  and 
72 


Copyright  by  Underwood  &  Lmucrwuotl,  New  Yo 

Patio  in  the  House  of  Senora  Gomez.     Page  72. 


MORNING    IN    MEXICO   CITY  73 

eyes.  Manuel's  hair  was  straight,  and  his  eyes 
looked  at  one  in  a  proud  serious  way. 

When  Senora  Gomez  looked  into  Manuel's  eyes, 
she  behaved  just  as  Donna  Hulita  had  done.  She 
said  nothing  for  several  moments.  Then  she 
nodded  her  head,  but  her  words  had  nothing  to 
do  with  the  nodding. 

"  What  did  you  think  of  the  horses?  "  she  asked. 

It  had  pleased  Senora  Gomez  to  send  a  carriage 
to  the  station  to  meet  the  two  little  boys. 

"  You  must  not  begin  by  spoiling  them,"  Don 
Luis  advised  her ;  but  she  answered,  "  I  have  lived 
sixty  years,  and  have  never  seen  anyone  spoiled 
by  a  little  kindness." 

Then  she  added,  "  It  would  be  sad  to  have  their 
bodies  here,  and  their  hearts  back  in  the  hacienda." 

"  Well,  well !  "  answered  the  Don,  "  have  your 
own  way.  It  will  be  nothing  new." 

So  the  boys  rode  behind  a  pair  of  the  very  finest 
Mexican  horses  on  their  way  from  the  station  to 
the  casa. 

Perhaps  Senora  Gomez  wished  to  learn  whether 
the  boys  would  notice  the  city  sights  and  pay  no 
attention  to  the  horses;  or  whether  they  were  like 
so  many  other  Indian  boys,  and  would  not  notice 
anything  at  all. 

She  soon  found  that  Manuel  and  Benito  were 
two  unusual  boys.  They  had  not  only  watched  the 


74  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

horses,  but  they  had  asked  the  overseer  so  many 
questions  about  the  city  sights  that  he  was  quite 
tired  with  answering  them. 

It  was  Benito  who  answered  Senora  Gomez'  ques- 
tion. "  If  the  horses  that  raced  against  the  steam- 
engine  were  like  those,  it  must  have  been  a  fine 
engine,"  he  said. 

Senora  Gomez  laughed  and  looked  at  Benito  for 
the  first  time.  "  Which  is  Manuel  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  I  am  Manuel."  The  boy  said  it  with  the  quiet 
dignity  that  was  a  part  of  him. 

"  I  was  sure  of  it,"  said  the  Senora,  nodding 
her  head  again.  Then  she  put  her  hand  upon  the 
boy's  head  in  a  kindly  way.  "  Donna  Hulita  wrote 
me  that  you  would  not  come  without  Benito,"  she 
said,  and  added,  "  I  am  very  glad  of  it." 

She  turned  the  boys  over  to  the  care  of  the 
housekeeper,  who  put  them  to  bed  as  soon  as  she 
could. 

"  They  are  good  enough  muchachos,"  she  said 
to  her  friend  Teresa,  the  chamber-maid.  "  The 
curly-headed  one  talks  most,  but  I  can  see  that  he 
listens  when  the  other  has  anything  to  say." 

In  the  early  morning  the  boys  were  up  and 
would  have  gone  into  the  patio  at  once  to  look 
at  the  gardens,  but  Teresa  stopped  them.  "  You 
are  to  be  dressed  in  your  new  clothes,"  she  told 
them,  and  called  the  housekeeper. 


MORNING   IN    MEXICO   CITY  75 

It  was  many  days  before  the  housekeeper 
ceased  talking  about  that  dressing-party. 

"  Here  stood  Benito,"  she  said,  "  saying,  '  But 
first  I  must  try  on  Manuel's  trousers  to  see  how 
much  too  large  they  are  for  me.'  He  got  into 
one  leg  just  in  time  to  hear  the  charcoal-man  in 
the  street  crying,  '  Charcoal,  sir !  Charcoal,  sir ! ' 
at  which  the  boy  ran  to  the  window  as  fast  as  one 
bare  leg  and  one  covered  one  could  carry  him. 

"  Manuel  ran  after  him,  waving  his  jacket  in  the 
air,  and  together  they  watched  the  charcoal-man 
until  he  turned  the  corner.  After  that  they  came 
back  to  the  dressing. 

"  But  Benito  had  forgotten  that  the  trousers  were 
going  on,  and  took  them  off  to  look  at  the  beautiful 
stitches  up  and  down  the  legs.  Then  he  must  needs 
look  to  see  if  the  same  stitches  were  on  his  own 
pair. 

"  He  was  greatly  pleased  to  find  both  pairs  alike, 
and  started  to  get  into  his  own. 

"  But  the  tallow-woman  must  happen  along  at 
that  very  moment,  calling,  as  always,  '  Is  there 
tallow  ? '  Here  was  something  new,  and  the  boys 
must  again  run  to  look.  '  Hey  sebooooooo ! '  called 
Benito  after  her,  and  you  could  not  tell  which  was 
the  tallow-woman  and  which  Benito.  But  I  trem- 
bled for  fear  of  what  he  might  call  next. 

"  Even  so,  the  trousers  were  at  last  safely  on 


76  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

four  legs,  and  it  was  time  for  the  vest.  But  it 
seems  that  the  time  was  also  arrived  for  the  corn- 
cake  seller.  *  Corn-cakes,  hot  from  the  oven,  my 
love ! '  he  cried,  and  naughty  Benito  hearing  him, 
answered,  "  Here  I  am  coming,  my  love ! '  and  was 
off  again  for  the  window,  with  Manuel  of  course 
behind  him. 

"  I,  myself,  was  quite  dead,"  said  the  woman 
plaintively,  "  yet  what  could  a  body  do  but  laugh. 

"  And  when  they  had  at  last  finished  looking 
over  the  jackets  and  each  trying  on  the  other's, 
there  was  old  Indian  Pedro  in  the  street  calling, 
'  Hot  boiled  corn ! '  to  divert  them  once  more.  Ah, 
it  was  a  long  dressing !  " 

Long  as  it  was,  the  boys  ate  their  own  breakfast 
and  explored  the  patios,  but  still  Senora  Gomez 
had  not  left  her  chamber. 

Then  it  was  that  Manuel  went  to  look  at  the 
horses,  while  Benito  climbed  the  marble  staircase 
to  look  at  the  flowers  in  the  gallery  above  the 
court-yard. 

He  found  his  way  into  the  rooms  opening  into 
the  gallery,  and  was  lost  in  wonder  'at  the  sight  of 
so  many  things  he  had  never  imagined. 

"  Manuel  must  see  them,  too,"  he  said  to  him- 
self, so  he  stole  softly  to  the  head  of  the  staircase, 
and  whispered,  so  as  not  to  wake  Senora  Gomez,  if 
she  were  sleeping  near  by. 


MORNING   IN    MEXICO   CITY  77 

"  Manuel,  Manuelito ! "  he  whispered,  and 
Manuel  ran  up  the  staircase  to  join  him. 

"  They  have  many  more  things  here  than  they 
know  what  to  do  with,"  whispered  Benito,  as  the 
two  boys  looked  from  costly  rugs  lying  on  the 
floor  to  more  costly  ones  hanging  on  the  walls. 
"  You  must  tell  Grandmother  Juana  to  hang  your 
sleeping  mat  beside  the  beautiful  tomato  labels  on 
her  wall,"  he  added ;  "  then  she  will  have  a  casa 
like  this  one  of  Senora  Gomez." 

Manuel  smiled  as  his  thoughts  went  to  the  tiny 
room  where  old  Juana  lived.  He  looked  about 
this  one,  so  very  different;  with  priceless  orna- 
ments on  rare  tables,  with  wonderful  pictures 
hanging  between  the  rugs  on  the  walls,  and  said 
gently,  "  Grandmother  Juana  would  not  be  ashamed 
to  ask  Senora  Gomez  to  sit  in  her  chair." 

But  Benito  did  not  hear.  He  was  looking  at 
the  picture  of  a  long  line  of  burros,  with  packs  on 
their  backs,  climbing  a  steep  path. 

Benito  stood  very  still  and  forgot  everything 
but  the  patient  little  animals  which  were  so  familiar 
to  him.  Suddenly  he  spoke  aloud,  half  angrily, 
"  Why  must  they  always  be  so  sad  ?  Even  here 
where  they  have  only  beautiful  things  about  them, 
they  are  still  sad  and  patient." 

"  They  are  like  our  poor  peons  back  on  the 
hacienda,"  said  Manuel. 


78  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

The  boys  stood  hand  in  hand,  looking  up  at  the 
picture,  and  making,  in  their  pretty  costumes,  a 
part  of  the  larger  picture  about  them. 

Sefiora  Gomez,  standing  in  the  doorway,  looked 
at  them  in  delight.  She  clapped  her  hands  softly 
together,  and  the  boys  turned  at  the  sound. 

"  We  have  much  to  do  to-day,"  the  Sefiora  said 
cheerfully,  "  I  shall  hold  my  Christmas  posada  to- 
morrow, and  we  must  go  to  the  market  for  the 
things  with  which  to  build  our  Nacimiento." 

The  two  boys  caught  their  breath  and  clutched 
hands  more  tightly.  They  had  been  afraid  that, 
in  coming  away  from  the  hacienda  at  this  Christ- 
mas time,  they  would  miss  the  joy  of  seeing  a 
Nacimiento  and  sharing  a  posada. 

Christmas  is  the  happiest  time  in  the  whole  year 
for  a  Mexican  child. 

No  family  is  too  poor  to  hold  some  kind  of 
festivity,  which  is  usually  called  a  posada.  At  this 
festivity  there  is  much  merriment,  with  feasting, 
and  dancing,  and  exchanging  of  gifts. 

The  two  boys,  who  had  come  to  act  as  pages  for 
a  rich  lady  in  her  grand  casa,  forgot  their  duties 
and  suddenly  rolled  together  upon  the  floor  in 
their  great  joy. 


CHAPTER  XV 

CHRISTMAS    SHOPPING 

"  I  have  never  heard  that  it  is  the  custom  for 
pages  to  roll  upon  the  floor,"  said  Sefiora  Gomez 
with  a  twinkle  in  her  eye. 

Benito  was  on  his  feet  in  an  instant.  "  Shame, 
Manuel,"  he  whispered,  "  the  naguales  will  be  after 
you." 

But  Manuel  was  already  upon  his  feet  and  both 
boys  were  making  their  finest  salute  to  the  Senora. 

"  Your  pardon,"  they  murmured,  as  old  Juana 
had  told  them  to  do  should  things  go  wrong. 

However,  Senora  Gomez  smiled  kindly  and  bade 
them  go  find  their  sombreros,  after  which  they  were 
to  escort  her  to  her  carriage. 

That  taking  of  the  lady  to  her  carriage  was  a 
sight  worth  seeing. 

Don  Luis  stood  on  the  gallery  above  and  watched 
the  group  as  it  passed  down  the  marble  staircase. 
Manuel  went  first,  leading  Senora  Gomez  by  the 
hand  as  if  she  were  a  queen  and  he  were  her 
courtier.  Benito  walked  behind,  carrying  the  lady's 
79 


8O  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

purse.  At  the  carriage  door  Manuel  handed  her 
up  the  step,  then  stood  aside  with  folded  arms  as 
she  told  him  to  do,  while  Benito  closed  the  door. 

Don  Luis  saluted  from  the  gallery.  "  They  will 
do  very  well,"  he  called. 

The  boys  sprang  to  their  seat  at  the  back  of  the 
carriage,  the  coachman  drove  through  the  great 
double  doors  to  the  street,  and  the  drive  began. 

Many  people  turned  to  smile  at  the  two  tiny 
pages  sitting  so  solemnly  in  their  seat,  as  they  had 
been  told  to  do.  Their  arms  were  folded  across 
their  chests,  their  eyes  fixed  straight  in  front  of 
them. 

"  The  cunning  things !  "  exclaimed  an  American 
on  the  sidewalk  to  her  friend.  And  the  friend  re- 
plied, "  They  won't  be  able  to  keep  their  eyes  off 
the  stalls  in  the  plazas  long." 

She  was  right.  At  the  first  street  corner  an 
Indian  passed  them,  carrying  over  his  shoulder  a 
long  pole  from  which  hung  paper  dolls  as  large 
as  the  boys,  which  jumped  and  twisted  with  the 
motions  of  the  pole. 

Manuel  saw  the  sight  out  of  a  corner  of  his  eye, 
but  he  took  no  notice  of  it.  Benito  saw  it  also,  and 
his  head  was  quickly  turned  to  see  it  more  plainly. 
He  turned  back  again  immediately,  and  looked 
straight  ahead  as  before,  but  he  was  quivering  with 
excitement. 


CHRISTMAS   SHOPPING  8l 

"  Oh,  Manuel,"  he  whispered  softly,  "  they  are 
pinatas!  There  is  a  clown,  a  dancing  girl,  a  ship 
with  all  sails  set,  and  a  queer  old  cat." 

It  is  only  in  Mexico  that  one  can  see  a  pinata. 
It  takes  the  place  of  a  Christmas  tree  in  the  lives 
of  little  Mexican  children.  Some  of  the  pinatas 
cost  only  a  few  pennies,  some  of  them  cost  many 
dollars. 

Benito  had  never  seen  such  fine  ones  as  those  that 
hung  from  the  Indian's  long  pole.  They  were 
made,  as  are  all  the  pinatas,  in  the  shape  of  a  per- 
son, an  animal,  or  some  object  which  will  hold  a 
bowl  of  sweets,  rattles,  whistles  and  crackers,  or 
anything  which  is  usually  hung  upon  a  Christmas 
tree. 

The  pinata  is  covered  with  bright  colored  stream- 
ers of  tissue  paper  and  tinsel  decorations.  At  the 
Christmas  fiesta  it  is  broken  open,  and  the  rattles 
and  sweets  fall  in  a  shower  and  make  much  fun. 

Hardly  had  one  Indian  passed  the  boys  than 
there  were  others.  Dozens  of  men  and  women 
were  selling  the  pinatas  on  the  streets  that  day,  as 
they  always  do  just  before  Christmas. 

Benito  sighed.  "  Ah,  Manuel,"  he  said  under 
his  breath,  "  I  don't  believe  I  can  bear  it." 

"  What  is  it  you  would  do,  Benito  ? "  asked 
Manuel  softly. 

"  I  would  jump  down  from  this  horrible  shelf 


82  MANUEL  IN   MEXICO 

and  run  here  and  there  where  my  feet  would  take 
me." 

Manuel  nodded,  "  I,  too,  suffer,  poor  Benito," 
he  answered,  "  but  have  patience,  it  cannot  last 
much  longer." 

Manuel  was  right.  They  soon  stopped  in  the 
great  plaza.  The  boys  sprang  down  from  their 
hateful  shelf,  Senora  Gomez  was  landed  safely  on 
the  ground,  and  the  boys  forgot  their  sufferings  in 
looking  at  the  Christmas  gifts. 

In  and  out  among  the  stalls  slipped  Benito,  for- 
getting and  then  remembering  Manuel,  as  he  spied 
the  many  things  they  both  loved.  He  crooned  a 
little  song  to  himself  all  the  while;  it  rose  with 
his  pleasure,  or  died  away  at  the  sight  of  something 
grotesque. 

He  stood  long  before  the  stand  where  wax  bells 
and  flowers  were  sold.  There  were  many  hand- 
fuls  of  the  little  white  bells,  which  shook  with  every 
breath,  and  over  which  Benito's  song  rose  so 
loudly  that  the  Indian  woman  behind  the  stand 
smiled  at  him  and  offered  him  one  of  them. 

He  took  it  with  his  prettiest  thanks,  and  turned 
to  the  stall  next  to  hers,  where  there  were  many 
scenes  in  wax.  A  newsboy  in  wax,  so  tiny  that 
it  stopped  Benito's  song,  caught  his  eye.  "  I  could 
make  something  as  good  as  that,"  he  said  aloud. 

The  Indian  who  sat  beside  the  stall  looked  at 


CHRISTMAS   SHOPPING  83 

him  sharply.  "  Here  is  a  piece  of  wax,"  he  told 
the  boy,  "  show  me  what  you  can  do." 

Benito  took  the  wax  and  began  to  shape  it  into 
a  head.  He  fixed  his  eyes  upon  the  face  of  the 
Indian  woman  who  had  given  him  the  bell.  After 
his  fingers  had  worked  the  wax  into  the  shape  of 
a  head,  the  features  began  to  appear.  Finally  he 
placed  a  woman's  head  before  the  man.  There 
was  a  smile  on  the  mouth,  the  same  sweet 
smile  with  which  the  Indian  woman  gave  the  bell 
to  him. 

"  It  is  Teresa !  "  exclaimed  the  man  in  surprise, 
but  Benito  was  presenting  it  to  the  woman  herself. 
"  May  you  always  have  joy,"  he  said  simply. 

Senora  Gomez  arrived  just  at  that  moment. 
"  We  have  been  looking  for  you  everywhere,"  she 
said.  But  the  Indian  man  called  to  the  woman 
with  the  bells.  "  Show  the  Senora,"  he  com- 
manded. 

She  held  the  head,  with  its  beautiful  smile,  to- 
ward Senora  Gomez.  The  Senora  studied  it  care- 
fully. Then  she  said,  "  You  are  a  genius,  my 
little  Benito." 

The  boy  looked  up  into  her  face.  "  I  do  not 
know  what  that  is,"  he  said. 

The  lady  did  not  explain.  She  led  the  boys  to 
a  stand  where  there  were  all  sorts  of  things,  from 
Chinese  lanterns  to  woolly  monkeys.  There  were 


84  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

peanuts,  wooden  toys,  hideous  masks,  jumping- 
jacks  and  wooden  whistles.  There  was  also  a 
nagual. 

A  nagual  is  a  queer,  horrible  thing  that  is  some- 
times used  to  frighten  children  and  make  them 
good.  This  toy  nagual  had  a  woolly  body  on  four 
little  legs  that  were  much  too  small  for  him.  The 
face  was  a  man's  face,  but  so  ugly  that  Benito 
shut  his  eyes  and  turned  his  head  away. 

Some  Mexicans  think  there  are  real  naguales  the 
size  of  men,  and  that  they  have  magic  power  and 
can  become  invisible.  Benito  did  not  really  believe 
in  them,  because  Manuel  did  not;  but  at  the  sight 
of  this  one  he  pulled  Manuel  away  to  the  candy 
stands. 

Senora  Gomez  followed.  It  pleased  her  to  let 
the  boys  do  as  they  liked  for  a  little  while. 

Among  the  candies  were  some  figures  of  the 
men  who  fight  with  the  bulls  at  a  bull-fight.  None 
of  them  were  more  than  an  inch  or  two  tall,  but 
they  were  perfect  in  shape.  The  boys  named  them 
all,  even  to  the  grand  person  who  rides  up  to  the 
president  of  the  arena  and  asks  if  the  fight  may 
begin. 

Benito  looked  at  the  tiny  candy  horse  with  its 
red  saddle  cloth  embroidered  in  gold,  the  tiny 
scarlet  reins,  the  rider  with  his  plumed  hat,  and 
laughed.  "  I  wonder  that  you  do  not  wish  to 


CHRISTMAS   SHOPPING  85 

become  an  alguacil  like  him,"  he  said,  "  that  you 
may  wear  his  fine  clothes." 

Senora  Gomez  saw  Manuel  put  his  arm  affection- 
ately over  Benito's  shoulder  and  heard  him  say, 
"  I  would  much  rather  be  the  matador  there.  He 
has  even  finer  clothes.  But  it  is  not  for  the  sake 
of  the  fine  clothes,  it  is  for  the  sake  of  killing  the 
bull  at  once,  with  one  stroke  of  the  knife ;  then  there 
is  no  more  suffering." 

The  Senora  nodded  her  head  again.  "  That  was 
spoken  as  Gabriel  would  have  spoken  it,"  she  said 
to  herself.  Gabriel  was  her  son.  He  had  gone 
from  her  many  years  before  and  she  had  never 
seen  him  since.  But  there  were  often  times  when 
she  longed  for  him,  because  he  had  been  dearer  to 
her  than  anyone  else  in  the  world. 

He  had  gone  away  because  he  wished  to  be  a 
matador.  The  life  of  the  bull  ring,  with  its  ex- 
citement and  danger  and  its  chance  for  bravery 
before  thousands  of  admiring  people,  had  called 
him  so  strongly  that  he  obeyed  the  call. 

Senora  Gomez  and  Don  Luis  begged  him  to  enter 
the  military  school  instead;  they  promised  him 
plenty  of  danger  in  the  army.  Finally  they  forbade 
him  ever  to  mention  the  bull  ring  to  them  again. 
So  he  went  away  and  they  knew  nothing  more  about 
him. 

Soon  after  he  went,  they  heard  of  a  remarkably 


86  MANUEL  IN    MEXICO 

brave  matador  who  had  suddenly  appeared  in  a  city 
to  the  south.  For  a  little  while  his  fame  grew,  then 
it  was  reported  that  he  had  gone  over  the  ocean  to 
Spain  and  would  never  return  to  Mexico.  That 
was  ten  years  before,  and  Senora  Gomez  had  never 
been  her  old  self  since. 

It  was  not  strange  that  a  high-spirited  boy 
should  wish  to  become  a  matador.  He  is  always 
the  hero  of  a  bull-fight.  He  is  the  man  who  kills 
the  bull  after  all  the  other  actors  have  finished  play- 
ing with  him. 

The  matador  is  dressed  in  the  most  beautiful 
clothes.  This  candy  one  at  which  the  boys  were 
looking  wore  a  pink  jacket  with  white  knee- 
breeches.  A  very  much  embroidered  shirt  was  un- 
der the  jacket,  and  there  was  a  gorgeous  scarlet 
sash  around  his  waist.  He  wore  white  stockings 
and  black  slippers. 

As  Senora  Gomez  looked  at  Manuel  she  could 
not  help  thinking  that  he  would  look  very  hand- 
some in  the  suit  of  a  matador.  Suddenly  she  said 
to  herself,  "  He  shall  be  dressed  in  such  a  suit  at 
my  posada  to-morrow." 

She  hurried  the  boys  a  little  after  that,  because 
there  were  many  gifts  to  choose  and  the  new  suit 
to  be  bought. 

Oh,  the  gifts !  Benito  was  in  quite  a  stupor  be- 
fore they  were  half  selected.  There  were  so  many 


CHRISTMAS   SHOPPING  87 

toys,  so  many  pinatas,  so  many  boxes  of  delicious 
candy!  There  was  so  much  hurrying  back  and 
forth  between  hundreds  of  stands  which  gleamed 
and  sparkled  like  fairyland! 

It  was  Manuel  who  kept  his  head;  Manuel  who 
closed  Benito's  fingers  over  baskets  filled  with 
packages,  saying,  "  Hold  them  fast,  you  crazy 
Benito,  else  they  will  drop  from  your  hand  and 
you  will  never  know  it." 

At  last  they  had  everything  bought,  including 
the  matador's  suit  for  Manuel  and  an  alguacil's 
suit  for  Benito. 

Then  they  were  driven  home  to  prepare  the 
Nacimiento. 

The  Nacimiento  is  the  Christmas  altar  and 
manger  which  may  be  seen  in  every  house  in 
Mexico,  from  the  very  poorest  to  the  very  richest. 

Under  Senora  Gomez'  directions  great  packing- 
boxes  were  placed  one  above  another,  like  stairs, 
nearly  to  the  ceiling  in  one  of  the  finest  rooms  in 
the  casa.  Blue  and  white  draperies  were  then 
thrown  over  the  boxes,  completely  covering  them. 
Mingled  with  the  draperies  were  quantities  of 
feathery  gray  moss. 

On  one  of  the  stairs,  wider  than  the  others,  a 
mirror  was  placed  to  represent  a  lake.  China 
ducks  and  geese,  and  little  boats,  were  scattered 
upon  the  water. 


88  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

On  the  stair  above  the  lake  stood  the  manger- 
cradle  in  a  little  house.  An  exquisitely  carved 
image  lay  in  the  cradle,  and  scattered  about  the 
house,  inside  and  out,  were  groups  of  figures  to 
represent  Joseph  and  Mary  and  the  others. 

There  were  the  three  Kings  who  travelled  from 
afar  to  see  the  new  baby;  there  were  sheep  and  a 
shepherd ;  there  were  men  driving  burros,  and  men 
on  horseback.  On  the  road  leading  up  from  the 
lake  was  a  yoke  of  oxen  dragging  the  heavy  ox- 
cart of  Mexico. 

Above  everything  else,  on  the  top  stair,  the 
altar  was  placed,  surrounded  with  candles  and 
flowers  and  tinsel.  The  candles  were  of  every 
color  in  the  rainbow  and  there  were  dozens  of 
them.  Over  everything  hung  wreaths  of  the  little 
white  wax  bells  which  shook  constantly. 

It  was  truly  charming,  and  poor  Benito  stood 
before  it  when  it  was  finished,  clasping  and  un- 
clasping his  hands  and  saying,  "  If  only  Pedro,  and 
Jose,  and  the  others  could  see  it ! " 


CHAPTER  XVI 
GABRIEL'S  HOME-COMING 

Benito  walked  in  a  dream  for  the  next  two  days. 
He  knew  that  wonderful  things  happened  and  that 
he  was  a  part  of  them  all,  but  not  until  many  days 
had  passed  did  they  get  straightened  out  in  his 
mind. 

He  knew  well  that  on  Christmas  Eve  he  opened 
the  posada.  In  his  alguacil's  dress  he  rode  a 
prancing  pony  across  the  patio  and  halted  below  the 
gallery.  Don  Luis,  Senora  Gomez,  and  all  their 
relatives  looked  down  upon  him,  and  he  asked  per- 
mission for  the  festivities  to  begin.  It  was  the 
way  it  happens  in  the  arena,  at  a  bull-fight.  And 
just  as  the  president  of  the  arena  throws  down  the 
keys  to  the  alguacil,  so  Senora  Gomez  threw  down 
the  keys  to  Benito.  He  caught  them  in  his  hat  and 
carried  them  to  the  porter  who  opened  the  great 
doors  wide  and  the  guests  began  to  arrive. 

From  that  moment  both  the  boys  were  busy  wait- 
ing upon  lovely  ladies  and  courtly  men.  Every  one 
was  dressed  in  his  very  best  to  do  honor  to  the 
hostess,  for  this  was  the  first  time  since  Gabriel 
89 


90  MANUEL    IN    MEXICO 

went  away  that  a  ball  had  been  given  in  the  home  of 
Seiior  Gomez. 

After  the  dancing,  Senora  Gomez  walked  among 
her  guests,  with  Manuel  on  her  right  and  Benito  on 
her  left,  each  carrying  a  tray  of  gifts.  To  each 
guest  she  gave  a  gift  and  a  pretty  wish  for  happi- 
ness. 

When  there  was  nothing  left  to  be  given  away, 
and  the  last  good  wish  had  been  spoken,  Manuel 
looked  up  into  her  face.  "  May  the  best  gift  and 
the  greatest  happiness  of  all  come  to  you,  Senora," 
he  said. 

She  looked  at  him  with  tears  in  her  eyes.  "  Ah, 
little  one,"  she  answered,  "  there  is  but  one  gift 
that  can  bring  happiness  to  me."  Then  she  turned 
to  go  away,  but  Manuel  said  gently,  "  What  may 
that  be,  Senora?" 

"  To  see  my  boy,  Gabriel,"  she  answered,  and 
went  to  find  Don  Luis. 

The  two  boys  looked  at  one  another.  They  had 
never  heard  of  Gabriel,  but  Benito  said  that  was 
no  reason  why  they  should  not.  "  Let  us  ask  the 
housekeeper  if  she  knows  him,"  he  said. 

To  the  housekeeper  they  went,  and  found  her 
busy  sending  maids  here  and  there  with  delicious 
things  to  eat  and  drink. 

To  her,  in  the  midst  of  all  her  cares,  Benito  said, 
"  And  pray,  who  is  Gabriel  ?  " 


GABRIEL'S  HOME-COMING  91 

The  housekeeper  was  so  astonished  at  the  ques- 
tion that  she  looked  at  the  boys  with  open  eyes  and 
mouth.  Then,  "  Come  with  your  questions  when 
it  is  summer  and  no  guests  here  to  be  kept  from 
starving,"  she  answered  briefly,  and  went  on  with 
her  work. 

But  the  maid,  who  was  just  about  to  carry  a  tray 
to  the  dining-room,  suddenly  spoke  with  a  fright- 
ened face.  "  I  saw  a  strange  man  in  the  shrubbery 
of  the  patio  an  hour  ago.  He  had  the  figure  of 
Sefior  Gabriel,"  she  said. 

"What  was  he  doing?"  asked  the  housekeeper 
sharply. 

"  He  was  watching  the  people  in  the  gallery,"  an- 
swered the  maid. 

"  We  must  speak  of  it  to  Don  Luis  at  once,"  said 
the  housekeeper. 

The  boys  went  away,  stealing  a  moment  from 
Senora  Gomez  to  look  through  the  patio  shrubbery 
for  a  strange  man. 

"  As  if  every  man  here,  who  entered  through  the 
big  door,  was  not  a  strange  man  to  us,"  said  Benito 
grumblingly,  as  they  started. 

They  were  fortunate,  however,  for  at  the  foot 
of  the  great  staircase,  in  the  shadow  of  a  column, 
hung  the  housekeeper's  parrot.  So  many  lights 
and  people  kept  it  from  sleeping.  As  the  boys 
stopped  near  its  cage,  uncertain  which  way  to  turn 


92  MANUEL  IN   MEXICO 

first,  the  parrot  suddenly  croaked,  "  Adios  1  Adios ! 
Look  at  the  strange  senor !  " 

Benito  was  the  only  one  who  was  startled.  A 
man's  figure  moved  quickly  from  behind  the  next 
column,  and  Manuel  saw  him.  Before  he  could 
speak  the  man  was  boldly  crossing  the  patio  under 
the  glare  of  the  lights.  As  the  boys  saw  his  face 
they  looked  at  each  other  and  Manuel  said,  "  He 
looks  like  Don  Luis ;"  while  Benito  said,  "  It  must 
be  Senor  Gabriel  himself,"  and  both  boys  added, 
"  The  Senora's  son !  " 

Just  as  they  started  to  follow  him,  to  tell  him 
what  Senora  Gomez  had  said,  there  was  a  call  from 
the  staircase,  "  Manuel,  where  is  Manuel  ?  " 

"  It  is  to  break  the  pinata,"  said  the  boy. 
"  Senora  Gomez  told  me  to  be  ready  after  the  pass- 
ing of  the  gifts." 

"  Go  then,"  said  Benito,  "  and  I  will  follow  the 
stranger  and  tell  him  that  the  Senora  has  spoken  of 
him." 

It  was  well  that  Benito  was  not  to  break  the 
pinata.  Excited  as  he  was,  he  could  never  hit  it 
even  with  his  eyes  open,  and  Manuel  was  to  be 
blindfolded. 

Two  pinatas  were  hanging  among  the  trees, —  a 
full-rigged  ship,  and  a  clown.  The  guests  flocked 
down  the  staircase,  and  while  Benito  disappeared 
into  the  farther  patio  after  the  stranger,  Senora 


GABRIEL  S    HOME-COMING  93 

Gomez  blindfolded  Manuel ;  then  she  led  him  to  the 
spot  from  which  he  was  to  strike  at  the  clown. 

It  was  a  pretty  sight.  The  boy  stood  in  the  midst 
of  so  much  light  and  color,  while  the  arcades  of  the 
casa,  also  a  blaze  of  light,  rose  behind  as  a  back- 
ground. 

There  was  much  laughing  from  the  guests  as 
Manuel  struck  once  at  the  clown  and  failed  to  hit 
him. 

"  That  is  being  but  a  poor  matador,"  said  Senora 
Gomez.  "  Try  again." 

At  the  second  stroke  the  clown  broke  and  the  air 
was  filled  with  jumping  frogs,  whistles,  wonderful 
puzzles,  sweets,  and  many  other  things. 

"Now  Benito!  Benito  must  break  the  ship," 
called  the  Senora. 

"  I  will  find  him,"  said  Manuel,  and  snatching  the 
handkerchief  from  his  eyes,  he  dashed  into  the  next 
patio.  He  found  Benito  and  the  stranger  under  a 
distant  tree.  The  man's  hand  was  on  the  boy's 
shoulder  holding  him  still,  while  he  watched  the 
group  of  beautiful  women  and  handsome  men  with 
a  sad  look  in  his  eyes. 

"  What  did  Senora  Gomez  say  to  you  when  you 
missed  the  pifiata  ? "  he  asked  Manuel  before  the 
boy  could  speak. 

"  She  said  I  was  but  a  poor  matador,'*  said  the 
boy  simply. 


94  MANUEL    IN    MEXICO 

The  man  took  the  handkerchief  which  Manuel 
still  held,  and  stepped  forward  toward  the  com- 
pany. The  laughter  grew  quiet.  Everybody  fas- 
tened eyes  upon  Senora  Gomez  who  stood  still  and 
waited  for  the  stranger  to  reach  her.  At  her  feet 
he  knelt  in  a  princely  way  and  held  out  the  hand- 
kerchief. "Will  you  let  this  matador  try?"  he 
asked. 

Senora  Gomez  began  to  sob.  "  Oh,  Gabriel,"  she 
said,  taking  both  his  hands,  "  Why  did  you  go 
away  ?  " 

Then  from  a  great  stillness  there  rose  a  great 
noise.  Everybody  was  suddenly  talking  to  every- 
body else,  and  no  one  seemed  to  know  what  be- 
came of  Don  Luis,  Senora  Gomez  and  Gabriel, 
who  had  quietly  disappeared. 

The  guests  also  began  to  disappear.  The  boys 
found  themselves  holding  open  carriage  doors. 
Everybody  was  slipping  away  from  the  posada,  that 
the  happy  family  might  be  left  alone  in  its  joy  to 
celebrate  the  Nacimiento. 

As  the  last  carriage  rolled  through  the  great  en- 
trance, Benito  held  up  his  finger  to  Manuel. 
"  Hark ! "  he  said.  Manuel  heard  in  the  distance 
the  stirring  sound  of  music. 

"  Why  do  we  stay  when  everybody  else  is  go- 
ing?" Benito  asked,  and  without  waiting  for  an 
answer,  slipped  out  upon  the  sidewalk.  Manuel 


GABRIEL'S  HOME-COMING  95 

followed,  not  knowing  just  what  he  was  going  to 
do.  The  great  doors  closed  behind  them,  for  the 
porter  had  not  seen  them  go  out.  Manuel  might 
easily  have  knocked  for  the  doors  to  be  opened  im- 
mediately, but  he  saw  Benito,  already  yards  away, 
hurrying  toward  the  plaza  from  which  came  the 
sound  of  music. 

Manuel  looked  forward  toward  Benito,  then  back- 
ward to  the  closed  door.  A  smile  flashed  over  his 
face.  "If  we  are  shut  out  into  the  city,  we  might 
just  as  well  go  and  look  at  it,"  he  said,  very  much 
as  Benito  might  have  spoken,  and  ran  forward  after 
his  playmate. 

No  one  missed  them.  The  servants  were  so  busy 
telling  each  other  how  it  happened  that  they  did 
not  see  Senor  Gabriel  in  the  patio  shrubbery  that  a 
long  time  passed  before  any  of  them  thought  of  the 
boys.  Don  Luis  and  Senora  Gomez,  of  course, 
thought  of  no  one  but  Gabriel. 

They  had  been  right  in  thinking  he  was  the  fa- 
mous matador  who  left  Mexico  for  Spain  ten  years 
before.  It  had  taken  him  all  those  ten  years  to  find 
out  that  he  loved  his  home  and  his  own  country 
better  than  he  loved  the  life  of  a  matador. 

"  I  will  go  into  the  army  now,  if  you  wish,"  he 
said  to  his  father.  "  I  have  had  enough  of  bull- 
fighting." 

"  No,"  Don  Luis  answered,  "  I  need  some  one  to 


96  MANUEL   IN   MEXICO 

take  the  care  off  my  shoulders.  ,You  have  come 
home  just  at  the  right  time." 

Then  Gabriel  spoke  of  something  else.  There 
was  a  little  child  whom  he  wanted  to  see.  After  he 
left  his  home,  he  said,  he  went  first  up  into  the 
mountains;  there,  among  the  Indians,  he  found  a 
beautiful  girl,  whom  he  married.  A  year  later  she 
died,  but  she  left  a  baby  son  whose  eyes  were  the 
eyes  of  a  Gomez. 

Gabriel  had  placed  this  child  with  an  old  Indian 
woman,  meaning  to  have  him  brought  up  as  a  peon  ; 
but  as  the  years  passed  he  longed  to  see  the  boy. 
Through  that  longing  to  see  his  own  son  he  grew  to 
realize  how  deeply  Senora  Gomez  must  sorrow  for 
her  son,  until  at  last  he  could  stay  away  no  longer. 

He  had  entered  the  patio  unnoticed  in  the  dusk  of 
the  evening,  behind  two  servants,  and  had  watched 
for  a  fitting  time  to  make  himself  known  to  his 
father  and  mother.  That  time  came  when  Manuel 
went  to  find  Benito  to  break  the  pinata. 

"  My  own  boy  must  be  about  the  age  of  your 
Manuel,"  he  told  the  Senora,  and  asked,  "  Where 
did  you  find  him,  Mother  ?  " 

"  Hulita  sent  him  to  me  from  the  hacienda,"  she 
answered. 

"Why,  Mother!"  shouted  Gabriel,  "I  left  my 
baby  with  an  Indian  woman  at  Felipe's  hacienda !  " 

Then  there  was  great  excitement  again. 


GABRIEL'S  HOME-COMING  97 

"  We  must  question  Manuel,"  said  Senora  Gomez, 
"  and  find  out  about  his  father  and  mother." 

She  clapped  her  hands  together  and  a  maid  hur- 
ried into  the  room,  only  too  glad  to  steal  a  look  at 
Senor  Gabriel. 

"  Go  at  once  and  find  Manuel  and  bring  him 
here,"  said  Senora  Gomez,  and  as  the  maid  went  out 
of  the  room  Don  Luis  said,  "Of  course  the  boy  has 
a  father  and  mother  at  the  hacienda.  He  will  say  he 
has  whether  he  has  or  not,  at  this  time  of  night." 

They  had  been  talking  a  long  time  and  it  was  very 
late.  Don  Luis  thought  Manuel  would  be  so  tired 
and  sleepy  that  he  would  know  nothing  at  all. 

But  the  maid  returned,  very  much  excited,  and 
said,  "  We  can  not  find  Manuel  anywhere,  nor  can 
we  find  Benito." 

At  this  the  casa  was  in  an  uproar.  The  boys 
were  certainly  nowhere  inside  the  walls,  and  as  no 
one  had  seen  them  go  out  the  servants  all  declared 
that  the  naguales  had  spirited  them  away. 

But  Don  Luis  spoke  sharply.  "  Out  with  the 
horses,"  he  said.  "  We  must  search  the  city." 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE    BOYS    HAVE    AN    ADVENTURE 

"  It  is  of  no  use  to  stay  always  in  the  casa,"  said 
Benito,  when  Manuel  overtook  him.  "If  we  do 
we  shall  know  nothing  of  what  is  going  on  outside." 

There  were  things  outside  which  were  better  left 
unlearned,  had  Benito  but  known  it.  There  were 
the  people  who  have  no  homes  and  live  wicked  lives. 
They  live  in  dark  corners  and  steal  whenever  they 
can  find  a  chance.  They  are  the  outcasts,  and  were 
known  in  olden  days  as  leperos.  There  are  hun- 
dreds of  these  people  in  Mexico  City. 

One  of  them  had  been  hiding  in  the  shadow  of 
Don  Luis's  casa  door  until  the  guests  began  to  go 
away.  The  Mexican  doorways  are  so  wide  and 
deep  that  a  person  can  easily  hide  in  the  shadow  of 
one.  It  has  always  been  the  custom  to  keep  the 
doors  locked  and  the  windows  barred,  lest  the 
lepero,  who  so  often  leans  against  them,  should  try 
to  get  inside  and  steal. 

It  is  such  a  common  sight  to  see  a  person  lean- 
ing against  a  window  or  post  that  a  good  Mexican 
mother  warns  her  boy  not  to  lean  against  a  post  for 
98 


Copyright  by  Underwood  &  Underwood.  New  York 

Market-Place  in  Mexico  City.     Page  99. 


THE    BOYS    HAVE   AN    ADVENTURE  99 

fear  it  will  make  him  untruthful.  "  The  post  is 
untruthful,"  she  tells  him. 

It  was  only  after  Porfirio  Diaz  became  President 
of  Mexico  that  robbers  and  bandits  disappeared 
from  the  republic.  He  turned  them  all  into  the  fine 
mounted  police  that  ride  over  the  country  roads  to- 
day. In  their  gray  suits  and  red  scrapes  they  make 
a  fine  appearance,  and  they  behave  as  well  as  they 
look. 

There  is  no  more  robbing  done  along  the  coun- 
try roads,  but  it  is  quite  different  in  the  city.  The 
city  policemen  are  always  ready  to  do  their  best; 
they  keep  a  good  lookout  through  the  day,  and  at 
night  keep  their  lighted  lanterns  in  the  middle  of 
the  street.  Then  everybody  knows  just  where  they 
are.  But  in  spite  of  this  the  thieves  manage  to 
keep  pretty  busy. 

The  poor  creature  who  moved  away  from  the 
door  when  Don  Luis's  guests  began  to  leave  saw 
the  handsome  costumes  on  the  two  boys,  and  saw 
also  that  they  were  but  little  fellows,  so  he  fol- 
lowed them. 

Benito  and  Manuel  never  once  thought  there  was 
anything  about  them  to  tempt  a  thief.  They 
stopped  in  the  plaza  long  enough  to  see  the  fire- 
works going  up  all  over  the  city.  They  listened  to 
the  band  and  watched  groups  of  dancers.  They 
looked  at  the  beautiful  gifts  for  sale  everywhere. 


IOO  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

They  mingled  with  the  crowds,  but  the  thief 
hovered  always  somewhere  near.  It  was  not  hard 
to  keep  the  two  picturesque  boys  in  sight. 

At  last  he  found  his  chance.  The  Alameda,  the 
great  park  of  Mexico  City,  was  ablaze  with  electric 
lights,  and  the  boys  wandered  into  one  of  the  walks 
to  look  at  the  fountains.  The  thief  followed,  and 
was  behind  them  when  they  sank  at  last,  tired  out, 
upon  a  seat  beneath  the  trees. 

"  I  wonder  if  there  is  any  place  in  all  the  world 
so  fine  as  this,"  said  Benito  happily.  But  at  that 
moment  the  man's  hand  fell  upon  his  shoulder,  and 
the  boy  started  to  his  feet. 

The  encounter  did  not  last  very  long.  Benito 
and  Manuel  were  strong  boys  from  a  mountain  val- 
ley who  had  learned  to  move  quickly  in  their  games 
and  burro-riding. 

The  man  had  Benito,  and  almost  had  Manuel,  in 
his  grasp,  but  Manuel's  head  was  always  a  cool  one. 
He  sprang  to  one  side,  saw  in  a  flash  what  was  hap- 
pening, and  jumped  upon  the  thief.  It  was  a  good 
jump.  He  landed  just  where  he  meant  to  do,  upon 
the  thief's  back,  with  his  arms  about  the  dirty 
neck,  and  held  him  in  a  hug  that  was  meant  to  last. 
At  the  same  time  he  opened  his  mouth  and  there 
went  forth  from  it  a  roar  that  would  have  done 
credit  to  a  yearling  bull. 

A  policeman  in  the  next  path  hunted  for  his  Ian- 


THE   BOYS    HAVE   AN    ADVENTURE  IOI 

tern  and  rushed  to  the  spot,  but  some  one  was  there 
before  him. 

A  man,  on  his  way  to  find  a  comfortable  place  for 
the  night,  reached  the  struggling  group  just  as  it 
was  rolling  on  the  ground  with  Benito  underneath. 

When  the  policeman  held  up  his  lantern  he  saw 
the  thief  lying  still  in  a  heap,  and  the  two  boys  rub- 
bing their  heads. 

"  I  could  not  choose  which  to  hit  first,"  said  the 
man;  then  catching  sight  of  Benito's  face,  he  ex- 
claimed, "  Why,  'tis  my  friend  of  the  wax  head !  " 

"  'Tis  true  that  my  head  feels  like  a  wax  one," 
complained  Benito. 

Then  into  the  group  there  burst  others,  and  still 
others,  as  is  the  way  the  world  over,  when  there  is 
a  disturbance.  Among  them  was  Sefior  Gabriel, 
who  took  charge  of  the  boys  and  carried  them 
home,  after  explaining  to  the  policeman  that  they 
were  not  enemies  of  the  republic. 

"  I  do  not  believe,"  said  Senora  Gomez,  her  face 
pale  with  so  much  excitement,  "  that  it  will  be  best 
to  ask  about  Manuel's  father  and  mother  to-night. 
Perhaps  it  would  be  better  to  wait  until  to-morrow 
to  find  out  anything  more  we  ought  to  know." 

But  the  two  boys  were  sound  asleep,  and  doubt- 
less had  she  asked  him,  Manuel  would  have  said  he 
had  several  fathers  and  mothers  back  on  the  haci- 
enda, for  he  was  too  tired  to  think. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
MANUEL'S  FATHER 

"Would  you  care  to  go  back  to  the  hacienda 
again,  and  live  with  Grandmother  Juana  ?  " 

Senor  Gabriel  asked  the  question  after  listening 
to  Manuel's  story  of  his  hacienda  life  with  the  old 
Indian  woman. 

"  Oh,  no,"  answered  the  boy,  "  I  would  rather 
blacken  the  shoes  of  Senora  Gomez  all  day." 

"  With  a  chance  to  run  away  at  night  ?  "  asked 
Senor  Gabriel  slyly. 

Manuel  flushed.  He  realized  how  much  trouble 
the  adventure  had  caused  them  all,  although  he  had 
been  asleep  most  of  the  time  since  it  had  happened, 
fifteen  hours  before. 

Gabriel  smiled  at  the  boy's  red  cheeks.  "  Ah, 
well,"  he  said,  "  there  is  no  need  for  you  to  do  either. 
I  am  looking  for  a  baby  boy  whom  I  left  with  old 
Juana  ten  years  ago.  He  is  my  son,  and  I  am  his 
father." 

Both  the  boys  looked  astonished  and  did  not  seem 
to  understand.  "  This  is  the  biggest  surprise  of 
all,"  said  Benito.  "  Will  you  let  him  go  to  the 
military  school  ?  " 

102 


MANUEL'S  FATHER  103 

"  What  about  the  military  school  ?  "  asked  Senor 
Gabriel. 

"  That  is  where  Manuel  wants  to  go,"  said  the 
boy.  And  then  it  all  came  out.  They  told  him 
about  Manuel's  dreams,  about  Pedro  and  Jose  and 
the  rest  of  the  band,  and  about  their  ambition  to 
become  something  better  than  peons. 

Senor  Gabriel  listened  and  turned  his  face  away. 
There  was  silence  in  the  room  for  a  long  time  after 
the  boys  finished  telling  the  pathetic  story. 

Senora  Gomez  walked  into  the  room,  looked  at 
the  three,  and  saw  that  the  boys  were  waiting  for 
the  man  to  speak. 

"  Why,  Gabriel,"  she  said,  "  what  is  troubling 
you?" 

"  I  have  been  a  bad  son  and  a  worse  father," 
answered  Gabriel.  "  It  seems  that  the  mountains 
speak  a  language  wliich  Manuel's  heart  caught  and 
answered.  I  could  not  have  made  a  peon  of  him, 
although  I  meant  to  do  so." 

Then  the  story  was  told  over  again  to  Senora 
Gomez.  She  learned  of  Donna  Hulita's  book,  and 
that  Manuel  went  to  school  with  the  little  girls  in 
order  that  he  might  learn  to  read  it,  while  Benito 
made  figures  in  clay  outside  the  door. 

"  While  Manuel  goes  to  the  military  school,  you 
shall  go  to  the  art  school  and  learn  to  be  an  artist," 
said  the  Senora  to  Benito. 


IO4  MANUEL  IN    MEXICO 

"  That  will  do  very  well,"  said  Benito  in  a  daze. 
But  when  he  could  get  Manuel  off  by  himself  to 
question  him,  Benito  confessed  that  his  head  still 
felt  as  if  it  were  made  of  wax.  "  What  is  it  all 
about  ?  "  he  asked.  "  This  stranger,  Senor  Gabriel, 
how  can  it  be  that  you  can  take  him  for  a  father  so 
suddenly  ?  " 

"  You  did  not  listen,  Benito,"  said  Manuel,  "  or 
you  would  have  heard  them  telling  how  he  has 
been  away  in  the  Spanish  country  all  these  years, 
and  was  the  most  famous  matador  there." 

"  And  is  he  going  to  give  it  all  up  for  the  sake 
of  being  a  father  to  you  ?  "  asked  Benito  in  surprise. 

"  Yes,"  said  Manuel. 

"  You  are  not  worth  it,  old  Manuelito,"  answered 
Benito  shortly ;  but  he  put  his  arm  over  the  boy's 
shoulder  as  he  spoke. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

SIGHT-SEEING    WITH    SENOR    GABRIEL 

"  There  comes  the  President !     Look  quick !  " 

"  Do  sit  still,  Benito.  You  will  see  much  bet- 
ter if  you  sit  still." 

"  No,  Manuel,  it  is  not  so.  I  should  see  nothing 
at  all  if  I  should  sit  like  a  pyramid  as  you  do. 
Look  at  those  flags.  I  can  count  over  one  hundred 
of  them.  And  did  you  see  the  flowers  in  the  bay- 
onets as  we  came  in  ?  " 

"  Yes,  crazy  one,  I  saw  everything ;  even  the 
flowers  under  the  cannon  balls." 

"  That  is  just  like  you,  Manuel,  you  see  things 
without  even  looking  at  them." 

"  One  could  not  help  looking  at  so  many  flowers 
and  banners  and  electric  lights,  Benito." 

"  Keep  still,  Manuel.  Why  do  you  keep  on  talk- 
ing when  the  President  is  coming  ?  " 

"  Keep  still  yourself,  Benito." 

The  boys'  voices  were  suddenly  drowned  as  the 
band  struck  into  the  "  Porfirio  Diaz  March,"  and 
the  President  of  Mexico  entered  through  an  aisle  of 
soldiers  and  cadets  and  passed  to  the  stage. 
105 


IO6  MANUEL   IN    MEXICO 

It  was  the  night  for  the  distribution  of  prizes  at 
the  military  academy.  It  seemed  as  if  everybody 
in  Mexico  City  was  in  the  great  theatre  to  see  the 
sight. 

Streamers,  military  emblems  and  banners  were 
everywhere.  Flowers  wreathed  the  cannon  which 
lined  the  entrance.  Even  the  bayonets  had  been 
turned  into  bouquet  holders,  and  from  chandelier 
to  chandelier  hung  festoons  of  evergreen  and  Cha- 
pultepec  moss.  The  pillars  of  the  patio  were 
draped  with  flags  and  wreaths  of  flowers. 

The  cadets,  for  whom  all  this  display  was  made, 
seemed  a  company  of  gods  to  the  two  little  boys. 
Manuel  could  not  help  thinking  of  the  time  when 
he,  too,  might  perhaps  receive  a  medal  from  the 
President. 

At  the  thought,  all  the  people  became  a  blur  to 
his  eyes  and  his  heart  thumped  against  his  ribs. 
He  looked  up  speechless  into  the  face  of  Sefior 
Gabriel  who  sat  beside  him. 

The  man  looked  down,  saw  what  was  in  the  boy's 
face  and  heart,  and  took  the  little  hand  into  his 
own.  Manuel  snuggled  close  to  him,  and  from 
that  moment  either  would  have  fought  men  or  bulls 
for  the  other. 

Benito,  on  the  other  side  of  Manuel,  knew  noth- 
ing of  what  was  going  on  between  the  boy  and  his 
father.  He  was  wriggling  about,  sticking  his  el- 


SIGHT-SEEING    WITH    SENOR   GABRIEL         IQJ 

bows  into  Manuel,  and  asking  question  after  ques- 
tion without  waiting  for  an  answer. 

"  Is  this  not  better  than  seeing  the  palace  at  Cha- 
pultepec,  or  riding  on  the  canal,  or  going  to  the 
pyramids  ?  "  he  said. 

There  had  been  a  month  of  sight-seeing  since 
Senor  Gabriel's  home-coming.  To  see  the  cadets 
receive  medals  from  the  hand  of  the  President  was 
the  climax  to  many  pleasures  which  the  boys  had 
had  since  the  posada. 

First  they  had  asked  to  see  the  barracks  of  the 
cadets.  That  meant  a  drive  along  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  avenues  in  the  world,  from  the  center  of 
Mexico  City  out  to  Chapultepec  Hill.  Chapultepec 
means  "  grasshopper."  "  The  Hill  of  the  Grass- 
hopper," repeated  Benito  in  delight. 

The  way  lay  under  great  trees,  and  past  charm- 
ing little  parks  where  the  boys  saw  some  of  the 
finest  statues  in  America.  The  road  wound  up 
the  hill  through  a  forest  of  cypress  trees  from 
which  hung  gray  moss  in  festoons  of  beauty. 

The  boys  took  the  drive  late  one  afternoon,  at 
the  time  when  everybody  in  Mexico  City  who  owns 
a  pair  of  handsome  horses  takes  the  same  drive. 

Benito,  of  course,  was  wild  with  excitement  over 
the  splendor  of  it  all.  As  the  carriages  containing 
beautiful  women  and  children  rolled  by,  the  horses 
tossing  their  heads,  the  silver  trappings  of  the  har- 


IO8  MANUEL   IN   MEXICO 

ness  clinking,  Senor  Gabriel  found  it  necessary  to 
hold  the  boy  for  fear  he  might  fall  out  of  the  car- 
riage in  his  enthusiasm. 

But  in  the  misty  loveliness  of  the  drive  up  the 
hill  to  the  President's  palace,  Benito  sat  quite  still, 
too  enchanted  to  stir. 

The  barracks  adjoin  the  palace  at  the  top  of  the 
hill,  as  the  cadets  act  as  a  body-guard  to  the  Presi- 
dent. It  was  here  that  Manuel's  feeling  found 
expression,  not  in  what  he  said,  but  in  the  way  he 
held  his  head  very  high  and  walked  proudly. 

It  is  true  that  he  always  held  his  head  high 
enough,  but  in  Chapultepec  Castle,  with  its  memo- 
ries of  emperors,  and  its  presence  of  three  hundred 
i>igh-spirited  cadets,  something  in  Manuel's  eye  and 
bearing  made  his  friend  Benito  say,  "  Don't  be  so 
proud,  old  Manuel,  or  you'll  scare  people." 

Senor  Gabriel  smiled  at  both  the  boys.  "  We 
will  try  sight-seeing  on  La  Viga  canal  next,"  he 
said,  "  There  is  nothing  there  to  make  one  feel  too 
proud." 

La  Viga  canal  runs  from  the  city  to  a  small  lake. 
Along  the  banks  are  straggling  Indian  villages. 
The  Indians  from  these  villages  carry  their  market 
produce  into  the  city  on  the  canal.  Sometimes 
their  flat-bottomed  boats  almost  hide  the  water. 
At  other  times  canoes  and  dug-outs  carry  pleasure 
parties  from  the  city  to  Santa  Anita.  From  this 


SIGHT-SEEING   WITH    SENOR  GABRIEL  IOQ 

village  one  may  take  a  little  trip  to  the  wonderful 
floating  gardens. 

Once  a  year  there  is  the  Feast  of  Flowers,  when 
the  canal  is  a  fairyland.  Then  the  water  is  covered 
with  large  and  small  boats,  all  manned  by  Indians. 
Bands  play  along  the  shore,  and  in  the  boats  In- 
dian women  and  girls,  with  wreaths  of  poppies  on 
their  heads  and  garlands  of  flowers  around  their 
necks,  sing  weird  Indian  songs,  picking  the  strings 
of  a  guitar  for  an  accompaniment. 

The  boys  saw  only  a  quiet,  pleasant  sight  when 
they  took  their  trip.  Sefior  Gabriel  chose  a  flat- 
bottomed  boat  to  please  Benito.  "  The  boats  of 
Cortez  had  to  be  flat-bottomed  to  get  anywhere 
near  the  City  of  Mexico  on  this  canal."  he  said, 
"  and  we  will  imagine  we  are  some  of  the  stragglers 
of  his  army." 

"  How  many  boats  did  he  have  ?  "  asked  Manuel. 

"  Thirteen  brigantines,"  answered  Senor  Gabriel, 
"  and  they  were  launched  on  Lake  Texcoco  to  the 
roar  of  artillery  and  military  music." 

"  Cortez  could  not  have  done  much  without  the 
help  of  those  Tlaxcalans,"  observed  Benito. 

"  They  were  a  great  aid,  first  and  last,"  an- 
swered Senor  Gabriel,  "  first  in  building  the  boats 
and  carrying  them  to  the  lake,  and  last  in  tearing 
down  the  temples  and  palaces  of  the  Aztecs." 

"  You  must  have  missed  the  sight  of  so  many 


IIO  MANUEL  IN    MEXICO 

ruins  when  you  were  in  the  Spanish  Country,"  said 
Benito.  "  Wherever  we  go  in  Mexico  we  see  a 
few  ruins." 

Senor  Gabriel  laughed  again.  "  There  are  many 
interesting  ruins  in  Spain,  too,"  he  said,  "  but  not 
so  many  as  in  Mexico.  "  To-morrow  we  will  go 
to  see  the  Pyramid  of  the  Sun  and  the  Pyramid  of 
the  Moon.  Then  we  shall  have  a  great  respect  for 
a  people  who  could  build  so  well  that  even  earth- 
quakes have  not  destroyed  their  work." 

It  was  a  trip  of  about  thirty  miles  from  Mexico 
City  to  the  pyramids,  and  Senor  Gabriel  found  the 
boys  very  quiet  through  it  all.  They  listened  to  the 
stories  of  history  that  he  had  to  tell,  history  as  old 
as  that  of  Egypt,  but  they  cared  little  for  them. 

They  liked  better  the  stir  and  life  of  the  city 
behind  them  and  were  glad  to  return  to  it. 

"  If  it  is  wonders  that  we  are  to  see,"  said 
Benito,  "  we  can  see  them  back  in  the  city." 

On  the  way  back  he  said  wistfully,  "  There  is  but 
one  wish  that  I  have  a  feeling  to  make." 

"  What  is  that  ?"  asked  Senor  Gabriel. 

"  It  is  a  very  big  wish.  I  do  not  think  it  could  be 
given,"  said  Benito  humbly. 

"  You  may  tell  it  and  we  will  see,"  said  the  man 
encouragingly. 

Benito  looked  up  into  his  face.  He  saw  much 
there  that  reminded  him  of  many  things.  "  Your 


SIGHT-SEEING    WITH    SENOR   GABRIEL  III 

pardon,"  he  said  as  Juana  had  bidden,  "  may  I 
whisper  to  Manuel  ? "  and  when  permission  was 
given  he  whispered  at  great  length  in  Manuel's  ear. 
"  He  says,"  said  Manuel  after  the  whispering 
was  over,  "  that  Juan  and  Jose  and  the  others,  es- 
pecially Pedro,  would  be  glad  if  they  could  come  to 
Mexico  City  and  see  but  one  thing.  Benito  would 
choose  to  let  them  see  the  Alameda,  but  I  would 
choose  to  let  it  be  the  castle  at  Chapultepec  with 
the  barracks  and  the  cadets." 


CHAPTER  XX 
JUAN'S  LETTER 

It  was  morning  at  the  hacienda.  The  birds  sang 
their  merriest  and  the  flowers  bloomed  their  bright- 
est; but  loneliness  and  longing  for  the  boys  who 
were  gone  filled  the  hearts  of  the  boys  who  re- 
mained. 

They  gathered  listlessly  and  only  when  the  ab- 
sent ones  were  mentioned  did  their  faces  brighten 
into  the  old  cheerfulness. 

Pedro  fixed  his  eyes  upon  the  mountains  in  some- 
thing of  Manuel's  old  way,  moving  only  when 
Juan  spoke  after  a  long  silence.  "If  we  but  knew 
the  way,  we  might  walk  to  Mexico  City  and  see  it 
for  ourselves,"  he  said. 

"  I,  for  one,  care  nothing  for  Mexico  City,  but 
for  Manuel  and  Benito,  without  whom  the  city 
must  be  a  poor  place,"  said  Pedro. 

"  An  earthquake  might  have  opened  the  ground 
and  swallowed  them,  for  all  that  we  have  heard  of 
them  since  they  went  away,"  grumbled  Jose. 

The  rest  of  the  band  agreed  with  him,  sure  that 
whatever  of  splendor  or  greatness  lay  upon  the  city 

112 


JUAN'S  LETTER  113 

was  there  because  Manuel  and  Benito  shed  it  from 
their  own  radiance. 

"  The  overseer  who  took  them  away  will  be  back 
to-day,"  said  Juan.  "  He  has  been  on  a  long  jour- 
ney to  the  north  and  has  just  returned  through 
Mexico  City." 

"  Stupid,  why  did  you  not  tell  us  before?  "  cried 
Pedro.  "  Let  us  go  to  the  station.  We  will  meet 
the  train  and  hear  what  he  has  to  say." 

But  it  was  a  long  time  before  they  could  get  the 
overseer  to  themselves.  There  were  many  things 
for  him  to  tell  Don  Felipe  before  he  had  leisure  for 
the  boys.  At  last  he  stood  before  them  and  took 
a  letter  from  his  pocket.  "  Will  you  read  it, 
Juan  ?  "  he  asked  politely,  holding  it  toward  him. 

But  Juan  waved  it  away  discreetly.  "  I  kiss  your 
hand,  Senor,"  he  said,  "  pray  read  it  yourself." 

So  the  overseer  opened  it,  and  read :  — 

"  Vamonos,  Juan!     Vamonos,  All! 

"  This  is  from  Manuel  in  Mexico  City, 
and  also  from  Benito,  for  what  is  the  use 
of  two  letters  when  there  is  but  one  thing 
to  say? 

"  Senor  Gabriel  is  to  write  it.  And  who 
is  Senor  Gabriel  ?  '  Ah,  that  is  the  won- 
derful thing.  It  is  as  wonderful  as  if  a 
star  should  fall  from  the  sky.  We 


114  MANUEL  IN   MEXICO 

always  thought  wonderful  things  would 
happen  on  the  other  side  of  the  mountain, 
and  we  were  right.  But  when  one  is  in 
the  habit  of  expecting  the  stars  to  fall, 
the  surprise  is  not  so  great  when  it  really 
happens. 

"  Manuel  has  found  a  father !  And  this 
father  is  Senor  Gabriel!  And  it  does 
not  seem  wonderful  any  longer,  but  as  if 
it  might  always  have  been  so,  yet  he  will 
always  be  a  wonderful  man,  because  he 
has  been  a  famous  matador.  Now,  are 
you  not  surprised? 

"  And  he  is  going  to  take  us  to  the 
hacienda  that  we  may  once  again  see  the 
coffee  trees  with  their  red  berries  shining 
through  the  leaves,  and  hear  if  the 
hacienda  birds  sing  more  sweetly  than  they 
do  here  in  the  city. 

"  And  most  wonderful  of  all,  you  are 
all  to  come  back  with  us  and  see  for  your- 
selves the  many  new  things  that  happen 
here  all  day  long.  And  there  is  no  need 
to  think  of  centavos.  Senor  Gabriel  can- 
not need  any  of  yours  because  he  has 
plenty  of  his  own,  and  he  will  take  care 
of  everything. 

"  Adios." 


JUAN  S   LETTER  115 

Twice  did  the  overseer  have  to  read  the  letter 
through  before  the  boys  seemed  to  understand  its 
meaning.  Then  a  mighty  shout  rose  from  them 
all. 

"  What  is  all  the  noise  about  ?  "  asked  old  Juana 
of  little  Pepita. 

"  It  is  from  Manuel's  band,"  answered  the  child. 
"  They  are  shouting  with  joy  because  it  is  promised 
to  them  that  they  shall  go  over  the  mountains  and 
see  what  it  is  like  in  Manuel's  land." 


VOCABULARY 

a  do  be  (a  do'  ba),  unburnt  brick  dried  in  the  sun. 

a  di  os   (a  de'  6s),  good-bye. 

Al  a  me  da   (a  la  ma'  da),  a  park  in  Mexico  City. 

al  gua  cil  (al  gwa  zeT),  the  officer  who  opens  a  bull- 
fight. 

A  me  ca  me  ca    (a  ma  ca  ma'  ca),   a  town   in    Mexico. 

Az  tec  (az'  tek),  an  Indian  race  that  inhabited  Mexico 
at  the  time  of  the  Spanish  conquest. 

Be  ni  to   (ba  ne'  to),  a  boy's  name. 

Be  ni  to  Juar  ez  (ba  ne'  to  hoo  a'  reth),  a  full-blooded 
Indian,  elected  president  of  Mexico  in  1861. 

bur'  ro,  a  donkey. 

bur'  ro  cor  ri  do  (cor  re'  do),  the  Mexican  game  of 
leap-frog. 

buen  os   (boo  an'  6s),  good. 

ca  ne  la  (ca  na'  la),  a  word  used  in  a  Mexican  "count- 
ing out "  verse. 

car  ga  dor',  a  man  who  carries  freight  or  express  bun- 
dles. 

ca'  sa,  house,  dwelling. 

cen  ta  vo  (then  ta'  vo),  a  cent. 

Chal'  co,  a  lake  near  Mexico  City. 

Cha  pul  te  pec  (cha  pool'  ta  pek),  a  fortified  hill  near 
Mexico  City. 

Cor  tez  (kor'  tez),a  Spaniard  who  conquered  Mexico. 

di  as  (de'  as),  day. 

Di  az  (de'  ath),  a  Mexican  surname. 

do'  la,  a  word  used  in  a  Mexican  "  counting  out "  verse. 

D8n,  a  title  meaning  Sir,  Mr. 

DSn'  na,  a  title  meaning  Madam,  Mrs. 


VOCABULARY  117 

Fe  li  pe  (fa  le'  pa),  a  man's  name. 

fi  es  ta  (fe  as'  ta),  feast,  festivity. 

fri  jo  les  (fre  ho'  les),  beans. 

Ga  bri  el   (ga'  bre  el),  a  man's  name. 

Go  mez  (go'  meth),  a  surname. 

gri  to  (gre'  to),  Mexican  declaration  of  independence. 

ha  gen  da'  do  (a  than  da'  do),  the  owner  of  a  hacienda. 

ha  ci  en  da  (a  the  an'  da),  a  cultivated  farm,  a  large 
estate. 

has  ta  (as'  ta),  until. 

Hi  dal  go  (e  dal'  go),  the  first  leader  of  the  Mexican 
war  for  independence. 

Hu  li  ta   (hoo  le'  ta),  a  woman's  name. 

I  tur  bi  de  (e  ter  be'  da),  a  Mexican  revolutionist,  af- 
terward emperor  of  Mexico. 

Ixtlilxochitl  (est  lei  h5  chef  1),  a  Mexican  prince,  born 
about  1500. 

Ix  tac  ci  huatl    (es  tak  se'  hwatl),  a  volcano  in  Mexico. 

Jo  se  (ho  za'),  a  man's  name. 

Ju  an   (hoo  an'),  John. 

Ju  an  a  (hoo  an'  a),  a  girl's  name. 

Juar  ez   (hoo  a'  reth),  a  surname. 

La  Vi  ga  (la  ve'  ga),  a  canal  in  the  City  of  Mexico. 

le  pe  ro    (la  pa'  ro),  a  worthless  fellow. 

Lu  is  (loo  e'),  a  man's  name. 

mag  uey   (mag'  wa),  a  cactus,  the  century  plant. 

Man  u  el  (man'  55  al),  a  boy's  name. 

Man  u  el  i  to  (man  55  al  e'  to),  little  Manuel. 

ma  ta  dor  (ma  ta  dor'),  the  man  who  kills  the  bull  in  a 
bullfight. 

Mi  guel  (me  gel'),  a  man's  name. 

Mit  la  (met'  la),  a  group  of  ruins  in  the  state  of  Oaxaca. 

Mon  te  zu  ma  (mon  ta  zo5'  ma),  a  war  chief  of  an- 
cient Mexico. 

mu  cha  cho   (m5o  cha'  cho),  boy. 

Na  ci  mi  en  to    (na  the  me  an'  to),  birth,  nativity. 

na  gual   (na'  gooal). 


Il8  VOCABULARY. 

non,  no. 

Oa  xa  ca   (wa  ha'  ka),  a  state  in  Mexico, 
pa  ti  o   (pa'  te  6),  court,  open  space  in  front  of  or  en- 
closed by  a  house. 
Pe  dro  (pa'  dro),  a  boy's  name. 

pe  on  (pa'  on),  a  Mexican  Indian  of  the  lower  class. 
pe  so    (pa'  so),  a  Mexican  dollar   worth  fifty   cents   of 

our  money. 

Pe  pi  ta  (pa  pe'  ta),  a  girl's  name, 
pin  a  ta   (pen  ya'  ta),  a  Christmas  toy. 
pla  za   (pla'  tha),  a  square,  a  market  place. 
P6  po'  cat  a  petl,  a  volcano  in  Mexico. 
Por  fi  ri  o  Di  az   (por  fe'  re  6  de'  ath),  a  president  of 

Mexico. 

po  sa'da,  a  Mexican  Christmas  festivity. 
Pueb  la  (pweb'  la),  a  state  and  city  in  Mexico, 
pul  que  (pul'  ka),  a  Mexican  liquor. 
re  bo  so   (ra  bo'  so),  a  covering  for  the  head  worn  by 

Mexican  women. 

Sa  era  Mon  te  (sa  crS  Mon'  ti),  a  hill  in  Mexico. 
Sal  til  lo  (sal  te'  yo),  a  city  in  Mexico. 
San'  cho,  a  name. 

San  ta  An  i  ta  (san'  ta  an  e'  ta),  a  town  in  Mexico, 
se  nor   (sa  ny6r'),  Sir,  Mister. 
se  no  ra  (sa  ny6'  ra),  Lady,  Madam,  Mrs. 
se  ra  pe  (sa  ra'  pa),  a  blanket  or  shawl. 
si   (se),  yes. 

sorn  bre  ro  (som  bra'  ro),  a  broad-brimmed  Mexican  hat. 
te-la  (ta'  14),  a  word  used  in  a  Mexican  "counting  out" 

verse. 

Tex  co  co   (tas  ko'  ko),  a  lake  near  Mexico  City. 
Tlax  ca  la   (tlas  ka'  la),  a  state  in  Mexico. 
tor  til  la  (tor  tee'  ya),  a  pancake  made  of  Indian  corn, 

mashed  and  baked  on  an  earthen  pan. 
u  na    (u'  na),    a    word    used    in    a    Mexican    "counting 

out "  verse. 


LJTTI  ,F.-PFOFL: 


JUI  9 


Date  Due 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA    001  121  278    4 

V        XL      J-l  JSrrr-gH    ^  J  L— -"7 


L  Hl 


ISSUED    TO 


University  of~Californ?a 
Los  Angeles,  Calif.  90024 


